Equality Impact Assessments (EQIAs) seek to determine the impact of policies on different parts of the population along nine different dimensions (age, gender, religion, political affiliation, marital status, dependants, sexual orientation, disability, and ethnicity). If the analysis reveals negative ('adverse') impacts of the policy itself on any of these groups, the public authority must decide which measures it will undertake to address ('mitigate') these impacts.

The Equality Commission has published guidance on how EQIAs are to be conducted (Practical Guidance on Equality Impact Assessment). The guidance identifies eight steps in an EQIA. Importantly, the engagement between public authorities and members of the public forms a key component throughout the process of conducting an EQIA. The final publication (the EQIA report) has to provide details on:

• Background (the organisation, the policy and on what basis it screened in)
  
  
• Data collection and consultation (what type of data was collected and how, how the public was consulted)
  
  
• Key findings (results with regards to all nine categories)
  
  
• Conclusions (regarding the impact of the policy and any decisions taken to address any negative impacts of the policy).