Grangemouth Industrial Just Transition Plan: Equality Impact Assessment

Executive summary

The Equality Act 2010 places a duty (known as the Public Sector Equality Duty, or PSED) on public authorities to have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity, and promote good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not. The Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties) (Scotland) Regulations 2012 (Regulation 5) require public authorities to assess and review policies and practices against the three needs of the PSED.

Therefore the Scottish Government has undertaken an overarching equality impact assessment (EQIA) as part of the process of developing the Grangemouth Just Transition Plan and the actions that it contains. This EQIA aims to consider how the JTP may impact, either positively or negatively, different sectors of the population across Grangemouth in different ways. Where any negative impacts have been identified, we have sought to mitigate/eliminate these. We are also mindful that the equality duty is not just about negating or mitigating negative impacts, as we have a positive duty to promote equality. The development of this EQIA has been underpinned by equality legislation and covers the protected characteristics of:

• Age
• Disability
• Gender Re-assignment
• Pregnancy and Maternity
• Race
• Religion or Belief
• Sex
• Sexual Orientation

The JTP has been developed with a view to developing a strategic decision making framework that supports industry to reach net-zero, whilst also putting in place structures that help communities and workforce maximise the benefits from the economic growth that the transition is expected to achieve. In support of this, the Plan provides a set of Just Transition Outcomes that are guided by the Scottish Government’s National Just Transition Planning Framework, outlining four outcome areas that the plan should achieve. The four outcome areas the JTP aims to improve are:

• Jobs, Skills, and Economic Opportunities
• Communities and Places
• People and Equity
• Adaptation, Biodiversity and Environment

The JTP defines a set of 21 actions that have been targeted to address these outcomes. All actions in the JTP were assessed through the lens of each of the nine protected characteristics to identify characteristic-specific impacts and give due regard to the three needs of the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED). This EQIA focuses on a select number of actions that are most relevant to equality impacts. These include:

• Support and fund the delivery of Project Willow.
• Create a Grangemouth Industrial Skills Pilot.
• Produce an evidence-based plan to improve public transport links
• Fund a recognised Community Engagement and Participation Manager
• Co-ordination and collaboration with the Greener Grangemouth Programme.

In undertaking this EQIA, we have identified areas where there are potential direct and/or indirect impacts on different groups and where work can be taken forward to promote equality. This process has demonstrated that for most of the protected characteristics, delivering the actions of the JTP is anticipated to have an overall positive impact on the three needs of the PSED. A Summary of JTP actions that are likely to have a positive impact on people with protected characteristics are set out in the Key Findings section of this EQIA.

As part of its commitment to delivering a just transition for Grangemouth, the Scottish Government will continue to proactively consider equality impacts throughout the development and implementation of the JTP. Further, the JTP outlines a robust Monitoring and Evaluation Framework that sets out a series of qualitative and quantitative indicators against which the plan’s efficacy will be measured. The Scottish Government will consider the JTP’s impact on equalities during each cycle of the monitoring and evaluation process.