Public Sector Equality Duty - Youth Service

Summary

The requester asked for evidence of the Public Sector Equality Duty compliance for the Isle of Man Youth Service, specifically seeking Equality Impact Assessments. The Department of Education, Sport and Culture responded with partial information, providing details on specific youth clubs and general guidance on equality duties, while withholding some documents under exemptions.

Key Facts

• The response references specific youth services including an LGBTQ+ club and a PHAB club for special education referrals.
• Compliance is governed by the IOM Equality Act (2017) and Section 36 of the Education Act 2001.
• The authority outlined seven principles for fulfilling equality duties, including knowledge, timeliness, and proper record keeping.
• Equality Impact Assessments (EIAs) must be proportionate to the service size, resources, and potential impact on protected groups.
• The response explicitly states that filling out an EIA template alone does not meet the legal requirements of the equality duty.

Data Disclosed

• 2017
• 2001
• Section 36
• 18 pages
• 2 documents
• 2025-07-18
• 2025-08-13

Exemptions Cited

• Part exempt (specific exemption clauses not detailed in the provided text)

Original Request

Dear sirs Please provide the details / evidence of the public sector equality duty under the equality act 2017 for the Isle of Man youth service including its youth sessions. This could be in the form of an equality impact assessment or similar demonstrative method the evidences compliance. Please provide all versions in this regard and all details. I look forward to receiving a response in the statutory timeframe.

Data Tables (1)

Data Tables (reformatted)

Full Response Text

3

• LGBTQ+ club for the LGBTQ+ community and Allies. • PHAB club which takes referrals from School special education Units to provide social experiences for eligible Young People.

What is the reason for the proposal or change (financial, service, legal etc)? The Act requires us to make this clear. Ensuring the service fulfils the Department’s public sector equality duty as set out in The IOM Equality Act (2017) and Section 36 of the Education Act 2001.

9

11 Guidance end-notes

1 The following principles, drawn from case law, explain what we must do to fulfil our duties under the Equality Act:
• Knowledge: everyone working for Government must be aware of our equality duties and apply them appropriately in their work.
• Timeliness: the duty applies at the time of considering policy options and/or before a final decision is taken – not afterwards.
• Real Consideration: the duty must be an integral and rigorous part of your decision-making and influence the process.
• Sufficient Information: you must assess what information you have and what is needed to give proper consideration.
• No delegation of Public Sector Equality Duty: Government is responsible for ensuring that any contracted services which provide services on our behalf can comply with the duty, are required in contracts to comply with it, and do comply in practice. It is a duty that cannot be delegated.
• Review: the Public Sector Equality Duty is a continuing duty. Ensure that there is a formal process of monitoring and review.
• Proper Record Keeping: to show that we have fulfilled our duties we must keep records of the process and the impacts identified. Retain copies of equality screening documents and EIA and forward a copy to the Equality Adviser at Equality@gov.im

NB: Filling out this EIA in itself does not meet the requirements of the equality duty. All the requirements above must be fulfilled or the EIA (and any decision based on it) may be open to challenge. Properly used, an EIA can be a tool to help us comply with our equality duty and as a record to demonstrate that we have done so.

2 Our duties under the Equality Act 2017 As a public sector organisation, we have a legal duty to show that we have identified and considered the impact and potential impact of our activities on all people with ‘protected characteristics’ (age, disability, gender reassignment, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, and marriage and civil partnership).

This applies to policy decisions. Policy is a broad term under the Act and includes policies, practices, services and decisions that affect both our service users and our employees. The level of detail will depend on what you are assessing, who it might affect, those groups’ vulnerability, and how serious any potential negative impacts might be. We use this EIA template to complete this process and evidence our consideration.

The following are the specific duties in the Act. You must give ‘due regard’ (pay conscious attention) to the need to:
• Eliminate unlawful discrimination, victimisation and harassment or other conduct prohibited under the Equality Act.
• Promote equality of opportunity. This means the need to:
− Remove or minimise disadvantages suffered by different protected groups − Take steps to meet the needs of different protected groups
− Encourage protected groups to participate in public life or any other activity where participation is disproportionately low

12

− Consider if there is a need to treat disabled people more favourably, as permitted by the Equality Act. • foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not. This means: − Tackle prejudice − Promote understanding

3 EIAs are always proportionate to:

• The size of the service or scope of the policy/strategy • The resources involved • The numbers of people affected • The size of the likely impact • The vulnerability of the people affected

The greater the potential adverse impact of the proposed policy on a protected group (e.g. disabled people), the more vulnerable the group in the context being considered, the more thorough and demanding the process required by the Act will be.

4 When to complete an EIA: • When planning or developing a new service, policy or strategy • When reviewing an existing service, policy or strategy • When ending or substantially changing a service, policy or strategy • When there is an important change in the service, policy or strategy, or in the city (eg: a change in population), or at a national level (eg: a change of legislation)

Assessment of equality impact can be evidenced as part of the process of reviewing or needs assessment or strategy development or consultation or planning. It does not have to be on this template, but must be documented. Wherever possible, build the EIA into your usual planning/review processes.

Do you need to complete an EIA? Consider: • Is the policy likely to be relevant to any people because of their protected characteristics? • How many people is it likely to affect? • How significant are its impacts? • Does it relate to an area where there are known inequalities? • How vulnerable are the people (potentially) affected?

If there are potential limited adverse impacts on people but you decide not to complete an EIA it is usually sensible to document why.

5 Title of EIA: This should clearly explain what policy you are assessing

13

6 Department/Office/Statutory Board: Area responsible for the policy being assessed

7 Focus of EIA: A member of the public should have a good understanding of the policy and any proposals after reading this section. Please use plain English and write any acronyms in full first time - eg: ‘Equality Impact Assessment (EIA)’

This section should explain what you are assessing: • What are the main aims or purpose of the policy? • Who implements, carries out or delivers the policy? Please state where this is more than one person/team/body and where other organisations deliver under procurement or partnership arrangements. • How does it fit with other services? • Who is affected by the policy? Who are the external and internal service-users, groups, or communities? • What outcomes do you want to achieve, why and for whom? (Eg: what do you want to provide, what changes or improvements, and what should the benefits be?) • What do existing or previous inspections of the policy tell you? • What is the reason for the proposal or change (financial, service, legal etc)? The Act requires us to make this clear.

8 Previous actions: If there is no previous EIA or this assessment is of a new policy, then simply write ‘not applicable’.

9 Data: Make sure you have enough data to inform your EIA. • What data relevant to the impact on protected groups of the policy is available? (Check Sharepoint Equality database in addition to your own sources) • What further evidence is needed and how can you get it? (Eg: further research or engagement with the affected groups).
• What do you already know about needs, access and outcomes? Focus on each of the protected characteristics in turn. Eg: who uses the service? Who doesn’t and why? Are there differences in outcomes? Why? • Have there been any important demographic changes or trends locally? What might they mean for the policy? • Does data/monitoring show that any policies create particular problems or difficulties for any groups? • Is the service having a positive or negative effect on particular people in the community, or particular groups or communities? • Use local sources of data or national ones where they are relevant. Look to the United Kingdom for data where local data gaps exist but consider developing local data.

10 Consultation: You must engage appropriately with those likely to be affected to fulfil the equality duty. • What do people tell you about the policy?

14

• Are there patterns or differences in what people from different groups tell you? • What information or data will you need from communities? • How should people be consulted? Consider: (i) Meetings with groups/external organisations/individual who represent the negatively impacted characteristic (ii) Focus Groups (iii) Workshops (iv) Survey questionnaires (ensure different formats available – paper; accessible docs; online) (v) Web based discussion group

• Make sure you:

(a) consult when proposals are still at a formative stage; (b) explain what is proposed and why, to allow intelligent consideration and response; (c) allow enough time for consultation; (d) make sure what people tell you is properly considered in the final decision.

• Try to consult in ways that ensure all perspectives can be considered, where proportionate. • Identify any gaps in who has been consulted and identify ways to address this.

11 Your EIA must address any actual and potential impacts.

• The equality duty does not stop decisions or changes, but means we must conscientiously and deliberately confront the anticipated impacts on people. • Be realistic: don’t exaggerate speculative risks and negative impacts. • Be detailed and specific so decision-makers have a concrete sense of potential effects. Instead of “the policy is likely to disadvantage older women”, say how many or what percentage are likely to be affected, how, and to what extent. • Questions to ask when assessing impacts depend on the context. Examples: o Are one or more protected groups affected differently and/or disadvantaged? How, and to what extent? o Is there evidence of higher/lower uptake among different groups? Which, and to what extent? o If there are likely to be different impacts on different groups, is that consistent with the overall objective?
o If there is negative differential impact, how can you minimise that while taking into account your overall aims

15

o Do the effects amount to unlawful discrimination? If so the plan must be modified. o Does the proposal advance equality of opportunity and/or foster good relations? If not, could it?

12 Consider all three aims of the Act: removing barriers, and also identifying positive actions we can take.

• Where you have identified impacts you must state what actions will be taken to remove, reduce or avoid any negative impacts and maximise any positive impacts or advance equality of opportunity.
• Be specific and detailed and explain how far these actions are expected to improve the negative impacts.
• If mitigating measures are contemplated, explain clearly what the measures are, and the extent to which they can be expected to reduce / remove the adverse effects identified.
• An EIA which has attempted to airbrush the facts or carry out a tick box exercise is an EIA that is vulnerable to legal challenge and carries both financial and reputational risks to the Government.

13 Age: People of all ages

14 Disability: A person is disabled if they have a physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on their ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities. The definition includes: sensory impairments, impairments with fluctuating or recurring effects, progressive, organ specific, developmental, learning difficulties, mental health conditions and mental illnesses, produced by injury to the body or brain. Persons with cancer, multiple sclerosis or HIV infection are all now deemed to be disabled persons from the point of diagnosis.

15 Gender Reassignment: In the Act a transgender person is someone who proposes to, starts or has completed a process to change his or her gender. A person does not need to be under medical supervision to be protected.

16 Pregnancy and Maternity: Protection is during pregnancy and any statutory maternity leave to which the woman is entitled.

17 Race/Ethnicity: This includes ethnic or national origins, colour or nationality, and includes refugees and migrants, and Gypsies and Travellers. Refugees and migrants means people whose intention is to stay in the UK for at least twelve months (excluding visitors, short term students or tourists). This definition includes asylum seekers; voluntary and involuntary migrants; people who are undocumented; and the children of migrants, even if they were born in the UK.

18 Religion and Belief: Religion includes any religion with a clear structure and belief system. Belief means any religious or philosophical belief. The Act also covers lack of religion or belief.

19 Sex: Both men and women are covered under the Act.

20 Sexual Orientation: The Act protects bisexual, gay, heterosexual and lesbian people

21 Marriage and Civil Partnership: Only in relation to due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination.

16

22 Human Rights: All staff should be aware of their obligations under the Human Rights Act (2001) and incorporated into law in the European Convention on Human Rights. Section Six of the Human Rights Act makes it unlawful for a public authority to act in a way which is incompatible with a Convention right. The underlying intention of the Act is to create a Human Rights culture in public services. Questions relating to the human rights implications of public sector policies and procedures include:

• will it affect the right to life of an individual? • will someone be deprived of their liberty or have their security threatened? • could this result in a person being treated in a degrading or inhuman manner?
• could this result in a person not having a fair, independent and impartial hearing? • is there a possibility a person will be prevented from exercising their beliefs?
• will private and family life be interfered with?
If the answer is yes to any of these questions, the activity should be reviewed to avoid impacting upon Human Rights.

23 Assessment of overall impacts and any further recommendations • Make a frank and realistic assessment of the overall extent to which the negative impacts can be reduced or avoided by the mitigating measures. Explain what positive impacts will result from the actions and how you can make the most of these.
• Countervailing considerations: These may include the reasons behind the formulation of the policy, the benefits it is expected to deliver, budget reductions, the need to avert a graver crisis by introducing a policy now and not later, and so on. The weight of these factors in favour of implementing the policy must then be measured against the weight of any evidence as to the potential negative equality impacts of the policy. • Are there any further recommendations? Is further engagement needed? Is more research or monitoring needed?

[Response truncated — full text is 19,673 characters]