Deposit and Return Scheme for Scotland Regulations 2020 (as amended): equality impact assessment
Equality impact assessment (EQIA) for The Deposit and Return Scheme for Scotland Regulations 2020 (as amended by the Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) for Scotland Amendment Regulations 2025) and the Deposit and Return Scheme for Scotland (Designation of Scheme Administrator) Order 2025.
Final EQIA
14. Undertaking an Equalities Impact Assessment (EQIA) is an iterative process which has been conducted throughout the planning for a Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) in Scotland.
15. This final EQIA is the fourth iteration to be published as part of this process and builds on the previously published interim and full assessments.
16. An interim EQIA was published [8] as part of the Scottish Government’s public consultation on the design of a DRS for single-use drinks containers which took place between 27 June and 25 September 2018. The interim EQIA provided preliminary and indicative insight into the risk of unintended equality impacts as a result of introducing DRS.
17. An independent analysis[9] of the consultation responses was completed by Griesbach & Associates and Jennifer Waterton Consultancy. This was published by the Scottish Government on 21 February 2019.
18. A full EQIA [10] was published in July 2019 as part of the launch of the preferred design for DRS. The full EQIA focused on some of the potential issues identified in the interim EQIA and considered what mitigations could be put in place to reduce these.
19. A further full EQIA was published alongside the final Deposit and Return Scheme for Scotland Regulations in 2020[11]. That EQIA did not identify additional equality impacts. Rather it provided information on the mitigating actions adopted and planned to address the potential equality impacts identified in the previous interim and full EQIA. This document should therefore be read in conjunction with the previous interim and full EQIAs, as together all documents constitute the complete EQIA for DRS in Scotland.
20. The previous iterations are expanded upon in this EQIA where relevant. This document will discuss relevant issues and mitigations which are relevant to the Deposit Return Scheme for Scotland Amendment Regulations 2025 and the Deposit and Return Scheme for Scotland (Designation of Scheme Administrator) Order 2025. This includes issues identified previously through earlier iterations, and expanding as required where changes agreed to the DRS design have the potential to further impact across the protected characteristics groups.