The Evaluation of the Equality Evidence Strategy 2023-2025

8. Reflections and Transferrable Lessons

Using the information provided by action analysts and the EDIP Board, this chapter will explore how, going forward, we can best set up and support activities, actions, and the Strategy itself to successfully enable equality evidence improvement.

This chapter will also outline insights into the potential direction for the third Equality Evidence Strategy based on discussions with the EDIP Board and Collaboration sessions with external stakeholders held in summer 2025.

8.1 Actions and the Role of the Strategy

The successes and challenges highlighted earlier in this report have contributed to the following learnings in relation to future action development around equality data improvement:

• Allowing opportunities for action holders to course correct or re-focus to ensure that data collection and production continues to remain a meaningful action. In addition, having a clear and measurable objective around impact from the outset of an action is important for actions that have no clear end-goal.
• Monitoring interest in and purposes of producing more data throughout action activity is important to ensure that fulfilling actions have meaningfully used resources and meet data user needs. Refocusing or repurposing activity goals may need to happen where data needs change.
• Analysts identified increased confidence and capability as well as collaboration with external stakeholders as a success which highlights a need, and want, to continue developing these skills.
• Collaboration and engagement with external stakeholders should be built in from the outset to identify user needs early on and further impact by securing buy-in and interest in the action activities.
• Increase opportunities for analysts and data users to support and learn from others collecting and producing equality and intersectional data. Primarily to increase confidence and promote a ‘collective responsibility’ towards data improvement and use, strengthening the overall Mainstreaming approach to equality data improvement.
• Potential barriers (such as the impact of multiple external factors, interdependencies or reliance on other processes to complete action activities, staffing and resource issues) need to be identified when creating actions, with clear plans to mitigate or work within these parameters as part of the action activity. Although some of these factors sit outwith the control of the Strategy, a future Strategy could consider how best to support analysts progressing equality data improvement activities when facing these obstacles.
• It is clear that establishing new processes or producing new data has had impact, but equality data improvement is still ongoing across a number of actions so longer-term impacts are hard to measure. Identifying intended impact early on in action development needs to be considered to support successful evaluation in the future.

All action holders were offered the opportunity to give their own feedback on what worked well and potential improvements included:

• Action holders saw the benefits of providing regular updates on action activities and thought that quarterly reporting was manageable;
• Sharing more regular case studies or examples of good practice with improved use of data;
• Actions that were too ambitious, became out of date or lacked a clear completion goal were more challenging to complete;
• More support from the Strategy owners (e.g., the Equality Analysis Team and the EDIP Board) to support delivery and prioritisation of the actions, rather than remaining focused on reporting;
• Regardless of which action category actions belonged to or the final status on an action, action holders’ feedback suggested that the Strategy was useful. However many action holders, including those who agreed the Strategy was useful, also reported that they would have delivered their action regardless which suggests an existing wider commitment to equality data improvement beyond the Strategy. A review is required to assess how best to build on, support or indirectly monitor existing commitments in the new Equality Evidence Strategy to ensure that it is adding value in the right spaces.

8.2 Structural changes

Based on conversations with the EDIP Board, lead analysts and external stakeholders in the final year of this Strategy, the following suggestions were made to improve the function and structure of the next Strategy:

• Take a more agile approach towards action monitoring to acknowledge and include other activities aimed at improving equality data that emerge during the Strategy’s lifetime.
• Action categories were useful, however they were created retrospectively at the interim stage (2024). For the next Strategy, it would be beneficial to understand what groupings action categories had in order to assess ongoing progress towards the Principles and overall Vision. Equally, as reflected by the progress of actions and EDIP Board opinions, Principle 3 (sharing good practice) was harder to measure or track, therefore further consideration of how principles are reflected and monitored across the actions is required, such as developing a theory of change or logic model. This would also allow clearer monitoring and reporting on progress on towards the goals throughout the Strategy.
• Improved collaboration between analysts, policymakers and external stakeholders in delivery of actions or activities related to equality data improvement. This will allow for actions to be developed more inclusively with data user needs or the people who will be impacted by the use of the data at the forefront of decision making.
• More frequent review points to monitor and implement any required change in methodology early on in an actions lifetime.
• Exit or mini-evaluation questionnaires for actions that were completed early on in the process to mitigate the risk of losing sight of impact due to staff changes and loss of knowledge.

8.3 Strengthening Focus

While the Vision set out in the Equality Evidence Strategy 2023-2025 is expected to remain relevant going forward, as equality data is always changing with new technology and knowledge, ongoing discussions with the EDIP Board suggest that there may be value in strengthening focus in the following areas:

• Impact of data on policy and ministerial decision making.
• Producing more intersectional data.
• Capability in collecting, producing and using equality data.

The collaboration sessions held in June 2025 with external stakeholders also raised priority areas for the next Equality Evidence Strategy. The key themes from these discussions suggest the need to strengthen data infrastructure, strengthen relationships and proactive collaboration between data users and organisations, and improve the function of the next Strategy to assess impact in policy decision making.