Sex and gender in data guidance: equality impact assessment

Screening

Policy Aim

The aim of producing guidance is to improve the collection of data about sex and gender by public bodies in Scotland, to encourage this, to support bodies to analyse and present it more effectively, and for this data to be used. A key aim is to encourage data to be disaggregated between men and women, to highlight where more needs to be done to tackle inequalities. The aim of the work isn't simply guidance for its own sake, but to create the conditions where data on sex and gender is routinely collected and used by Scottish public bodies to design, plan, monitor and evaluate services that are sensitive to the needs of all of Scotland. This includes helping organisations to understand not just the issues on sex and gender, but on the intersectionality between this and other socio-demographic characteristics (including the protected characteristics in the Equality Act 2010). This should most importantly enable them to develop better policy and services which deliver better and more equal outcomes.

Contributes to all National Outcomes in the sense that we need data on men and women to monitor performance against these Outcomes.

Who will it affect?

The policy will affect public bodies - i.e. the way that they collect data from people, what data is collected and published and how the question is asked. Because the guidance relates primarily to the collection of data about women and men, these are the people most likely to be impacted. But also trans people who are sensitive to the way in which this data is collected. It may affect how younger/older age groups respond to questions, or disabled people. Cognitive testing should explore any age or disability related effects of the way the data is collected.

What might prevent the desired outcomes being achieved?

Technology - existing systems used to collect data from people who use public services may not be easy to update with new guidance.

Buy in - there may be lack of buy in from public bodies and they may not have the resource to review and decide whether their data collection systems should be updated. Data may be collected differently across organisations which will limit the extent of any data linkage and wider utility from the data.

Culture change - there may be instances where data on men and women is already being collected but isn't then disaggregated or analysed. Some stakeholders have called for researchers to be made more aware of this when using data so that proper insights are revealed.