This section will hold a number of tools to support you in the delivery of an Equality Impact Assessment within your fire & rescue service.

We recognise services may hold this template under a different title/name, and this has been recognised within the template to ensure services can continue to use the name that is familiar to them. We also know that services are at different stages of embedding impact assessments and hope the additional tools to be supplied over a period of time will support you.

The NFCC Equality Impact Assessment (EqIA) template is a way of systematically assessing the effects that a policy, project or decision is likely to have on different people within your fire & rescue service, and the communities it serves.

It can assist you to identify discrimination by analysing your policies, projects, practices, processes, procedures, services, and decisions, to make sure they do not discriminate or disadvantage people, and will help towards improving or promoting equality.

Carrying out an Impact Assessment will help you meet your legal duties as well as bringing a number of benefits. It will:

• ensure that your decisions impact in a fair way: where there is evidence that particular groups will be negatively affected by a decision, action should be taken to address this. 
• make your decisions based on evidence: EqIA provides a clear and structured way to collect, assess and put forward relevant evidence. 
• make decision-making more transparent: a process which involves those affected by the policy and which is based on evidence is much more open and transparent. This is more likely to engender trust in decision-makers and in your decisions.
• provide a platform for partnership working: EqIA offers an opportunity for organisations to work in partnership to consider the impact on members of their shared communities and how they might best collaborate and co-ordinate financial decisions.