Scottish Welfare Fund statutory guidance amendments - April 2026: equality impact assessment

Stage 4: Decision making and monitoring

Identifying and establishing any required mitigating action

• Have positive or negative impacts been identified for any of the equality groups?
  • Yes, there have been positive impacts identified for some protected characteristics.
• Is the policy directly or indirectly discriminatory under the Equality Act 2010?^[68]
  • No.
• If the policy is indirectly discriminatory, how is it justified under the relevant legislation?
  • N/A
• If not justified, what mitigating action will be undertaken?
  • N/A

Describing how Equality Impact analysis has shaped the policy making process

As a result of this EQIA we have not identified any negative impacts on people with protected characteristics based on our proposals and when completing the equalities assessment. We have engaged with relevant stakeholders throughout the process of updating the statutory guidance and will continue to do so to make sure the policy is well-informed and that any equality issues that may arise moving forward will be dealt with appropriately ahead of publication or during future updates to the guidance, which will be on annual basis.

There are no new areas identified in this EQIA at this point which have not already been considered when updating the statutory guidance.

Monitoring and Review

Once our proposals are implemented in April 2026, we will review the statutory guidance on an annual basis with our standing Statutory Guidance Review Committee to ensure it continues to work as well as possible for everyone and in all parts of Scotland.

This committee is made up of representatives from the third sector, CoSLA, local authorities, Scottish Government and SPSO. The committee can also call on other stakeholders for input and analysis to help inform any proposals.