Making EIA work for you: Reviewing student recruitment and admissions Freya Douglas, Equality Challenge Unit Gillian Simmons, University of Edinburgh

ECU Equality Challenge Unit works to further and support equality and diversity for staff and students in higher education across all four nations of the UK, and in colleges in Scotland. Funded by SFC to provide research, guidance, resources, and advice to Scottish HEIs and colleges. New programme of student journey projects, 2014-15.

University of Edinburgh student recruitment and admissions Responsibility for admissions is dispersed across the University Central SRA office responsible for over-arching strategic and policy framework, compliance and implementation SRA also has responsibility for WP

Context for equality impact assessment (EIA) Legal requirement – Equality Act 2010 specific duties Tool to mainstream and embed equality Evidence of underrepresentation and disadvantage in access to HE and FE for E&D groups

Equality Act 2010 The protected characteristics age disability 19/05/2011 Equality Act 2010 The protected characteristics age disability gender reassignment pregnancy and maternity race religion or belief (including lack of belief) sex sexual orientation EIA is a legal requirement in Scotland. It is part of the Scottish specific duties that underpin the Equality act, which came in in 2010. The act aligned and consolidated previous anti-discrimination legislation for gender, disability and race into one act. Extended protection to a broader range of people through the PCs.

Equality Act 2010 and admissions 19/05/2011 Equality Act 2010 and admissions Discrimination and victimisation are unlawful in relation to: the arrangements an institution makes for deciding who is offered admission as a student the terms on which an institution offers to admit a person as a student by not admitting a person as a student The Act makes it unlawful for HEIs to discriminate against or victimise students during the admissions cycle. It specifies that discrimination and victimisation are unlawful in relation to... The arrangements an HEI makes for deciding who is offered admission as a student. This includes: course design Entry requirements Course marketing (open days, campus tours, summer schools, taster courses, mentoring schemes, recruitment fairs and activities) Information about the institution and the course Application and admissions processes (application forms, interviews and tests) Terms – indirect unless proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim Not admitting – age

Public sector equality duty (PSED) The PSED came into force on 5 April 2011 HEIs must: Eliminate discrimination Advance equality of opportunity Foster good relations Between those who share a protected characteristic.

Equality of opportunity To advance equality of opportunity, HEIs and colleges need to: remove or minimise disadvantages suffered by people from protected groups take steps to meet the different needs of those people encourage those underrepresented to participate

Equality impact assessment (EIA) Developed under previous legislation Tool to ensure policy or practice is non-discriminatory, inclusive and advances equality Means of reviewing how a function is advancing equality and what more can be done Can be undertaken at strategy or initiative level So EIA is a specific duty – institutions have to do it for all new and any revised strategies, policies, practices and strategic decisions. But its more than a legal requirement – it’s a very helpful tool to help ensure your work is as appropriate and effective as possible for all students.

Core principles EIA doesn’t have to follow a set process Consider potential equality impacts, positive and negative, on meeting each part of the PSED for all protected characteristics Use evidence in the assessment Use the results to inform action Publish the results of the assessment On the legal side - Scottish duties specify that you must think about the 3 aims of the PSED (eliminating discrimination, advancing equality of opportunity and fostering good relations) and consider all PCs You must also use evidence. That doesn’t just have to be stats/hard data. Can be anecdotal, informal feedback, past experience, it’s how you know the impacts are or are not happening. E.g. a potential impact for disabled students in accessing an open day. You may not know how many people are coming to the open day who are disabled, but you know from experience that some venues are not as accessible as others. So it is anticipatory rather than reactionary. The duties also say that you need to act on the results – so take action to mitigate negative impacts and ensure positive impacts are taken advantage of. You need to demonstrate that this is done, so that’s why the final point is important – publishing results. It’s key that you record the outcomes, or what action you are taking, as a result of the assessment. You don’t need to publish the whole thing, but what you are doing and why. Need to publish somewhere accessible – website.

EIA of student recruitment and admissions What are the potential impacts across the different stages of the applicant experience? How are policies and activities taking account of these impacts? How are the needs of students from diverse groups being met? What more could be done?

EIA of student recruitment and admissions Background - In 2012, ECU ‘Equitable admissions for underrepresented groups’ project. Worked with 7 HEIs and one college. We looked at how equality was taken into account at key stages of the process, or the key points of interaction between institution and potential student. I’ve brought along the publication for you to take away with you. To launch the pub, we held an event at the University of Edinburgh where we brought together recruitment, admissions, WP, marketing staff from HEIs to look at their admissions process across these stages. In a way these teams were undertaking a form of EIA together, and it lead to further work back in their institutions. I’m going to hand over to Gillian from UoE now to explain what they did after this event to undertake a more thorough and formal EIA of their process.

EIA in practice: University of Edinburgh Undertaking a strategic EIA of student recruitment and admissions Using ECU/SPA breakdown of the applicant journey: Pre-application / Application / Post-application / Transition Scope: all PC groups but including other under-represented groups Broad, over-arching EIAs of the principles / policies / procedures / activities involved at each stage of the admissions process NB individual policies are subject to an EIA when introduced / reviewed as part of that process. Those individual EIAs will feed into the relevant over-arching EIA. Some of the stages are so broad, have to be further broken down – currently expecting there to be three EIAs covering the middle stages: Application / Selection / Admissions policies Scope – decision to include WP groups because there will be many overlaps with PC groups, and principles of E&D seem to be valid for WP groups too

Approach High level mapping of activities / processes / policies for each stage of the journey Identification of risks and mitigating actions Identification of opportunities and actions needed to optimise these Aim: to produce a useable tool which can be applied at all levels

Pre-application EIA Working group including recruitment / WP / international office / admissions / student disability service Mapping activities related to information giving / recruitment / outreach Review of data Anticipatory approach Mapping - have tried to cover everything, but we know we’ll have gaps. On-going review and revision will allow us to keep the EIA updated. Data: we have very little. Have introduced some mechanisms to try and collect more. Including equalities monitoring form as part of Open Day booking form wasn’t popular. Have now changed this to a link to a separate web-based monitoring form. Don’t yet know how effective this will be. Anticipatory approach – identifying the problems which someone from a PC group might have, and making arrangements to get rid of that risk. Has to be proportionate, though. May not be able to remove every risk. Format – tried to make it easy to use and practical. However, can already see ways it could be improved. “Who by” isn’t terribly useful in this context, and “When” might be helpful. Will revise the format slightly for the next stage EIAs.

Pre-application EIA Published December 2013 Briefings held with UG and PG admissions staff, SRA staff and some IO staff Impact to date: Review of powerpoint presentations IO reviewing publications and activities Policy development eg mature students It will be an on-going piece of work to ensure that everyone knows about the EIAs, and that they remember to use them. But this links in to our wider E&D training programme, and also has a “selling point” in that it saves people having to impact assess everything themselves.

Next steps Currently working on EIAs of application processes / selection / admissions policies Plan to publish end March / early April Transition stage should be complete by end April Annual review Working group for current stage is smaller – mainly admissions staff (PG and UG) and SDS Transition stage is likely to be quite similar to the Pre-application EIA Annual review will look at new data / update re completed actions / consider if potential impacts remain the same / add new actions where risks have changed or new opportunities have been identified

Discussion Have you been involved with EIA in the past? Could this type of approach to EIA work in your institution? Are the potential impacts identified relevant to your institution? What types of action are you taking?

Resources Access, retention and success: aligning WP and E&D: http://www.ecu.ac.uk/publications/files/access-retention-and-success-aligning-wp-and-e-d.pdf/ ECU statistical reports on student participation: HEIs: http://www.ecu.ac.uk/publications/equality-in-higher-education-statistical-report-2013 Colleges: http://www.ecu.ac.uk/publications/equality-in-colleges-in-scotland-statistical-report-2013 Equitable admissions for underrepresented groups: http://www.ecu.ac.uk/publications/files/equitable-admissions-for-underrepresented-groups.pdf/

Keep in touch! info@ecu.ac.uk www.ecu.ac.uk Freya Douglas Tel: 0207 438 1027 freya.douglas@ecu.ac.uk Gillian Simmons Tel: 0131 651 4536 gillian.simmons@ed.ac.uk