It’s the time of year when the Government decides how much (or, more usually, how little) money it is going to give to local authorities for their local government finance settlement. As with every year, they launch a consultation on their proposals. This year, it drew our attention, because it was accompanied by a ‘draft policy impact statement’.

The reason this particularly drew our attention was because in name alone, it sounds remarkably close to the regulatory impact assessments that we commonly see in the devolved administrations, but significantly less so (at the national level) in England. We’re hoping to do some more work on RIAs in the new year, because we suspect they might become more important and advisable for consultors are all levels.

Looking into this particular example a little closer however we realised that it is not in fact an analogue to regulatory impact assessments, but rather to another more common impact assessment that we hope you are by now all familiar with- the equalities impact assessment. The consultation itself does not tackle equalities, instead directing interested parties to this document.

So, what’s the difference? Applying an adjusted version of the duck test, if it looks like an equality impact assessment, and takes the role in the consultation of the equality impact assessment, then why not call it an equality impact assessment?

In this case it may well be because it is so vague. Were someone to present it to us as an example of an EIA, we would likely send it back as being inadequate. Issues are not tackled in any sort of depth, and the nearest thing we get to a conclusion is that “the Government has not identified any compelling evidence that the 2022/23 settlement will have a substantial impact on those who share protected characteristics”.

The next sentence however, may give us a clue as to why it has not been listed as an EIA, despite fulfilling that role in the consultation. “The extent of the impact will also depend on the decisions made by authorities in response to a number of central and local policies”. In short, this particular policy is at too high a level to be able to adequately assess the potential impacts.

As a general rule we would probably agree that equalities impact assessments are one of those things that are best done as close to the decision-maker as possible. The law agrees with that too, it’s why ‘due regard’ features so heavily in equalities-based cases. To pretend however that a funding decision which will heavily feed back down the pyramid of government to the local level will have little likely impact on people with protected characteristics seems either hopelessly naïve, or wilfully ignorant.

It comes down to the difference between the strategic, and the tactical. Whilst the Government are correct when they say that the extent of impact will be largely based on local decision-making, we can’t help but feel that some effort at the strategic level beyond that covered in this document might be welcomed. Naturally, we would not expect a comprehensive assessment- the numbers of people involved would be prohibitive- but at least some engagement would not make it seem quite so dismissive of what is an important issue.