Councils failing to meet equality duty legal requirements when cutting adult care budgets, charity claims

Some local authorities have indicated that they did not and would not conduct equality impact assessments on their adult social care budgets, freedom of information requests carried out by the Afiya Trust have revealed.

The Trust received 118 responses from local authorities to its FOI requests, which were intended to determine whether public sector cuts are impacting disproportionately on BME families and voluntary and community groups.

Publishing an interim report earlier this month, the health charity said: “Whilst in some cases this appeared to be because the equality impact assessment was conducted corporately, in other cases the rationale for this approach was unclear and it was unclear whether or not the local authority was complying with the previous or current public sector equality duties.”

The research was conducted by the Trust as part of its Living in the Margins campaign. A full report will be published in the summer.

One in five of the responses did not declare whether equality impact assessments had been conducted. One in five authorities also said they did not collect data on the funding allocated to BME voluntary and community sector organisations, which the Trust described as “alarming”.

The FOI requests also found that the overall funding trend for BME voluntary and community sector organisations was down. The biggest cuts have occurred in Greater London, with 74% of local authorities there reporting cuts.

Around £3m was cut to BME voluntary and community sector organisations in social care funding in 2010/11. Half of this sum was in London.

Patrick Vernon, the Afiya Trust’s chief executive, said: “There is clear evidence that many local authorities are not delivering on their legal requirement as of part of the public sector equality duty to conduct equality impact assessments when making funding cuts that affect BME communities.

“This comes at a time when BME communities are experiencing one of the largest increases in health inequalities and one of the largest reductions in social mobility since the 1940s. Yet, from our initial findings, they are bearing a significant brunt of the cuts.”

The Trust called on the Department for Communities and Local Government to review the guidance to local authorities on best practice on funding cuts, and to ensure that “all local authorities undertake equality impact assessments with clear evidence that the impact on BME communities has been factored into all decision making processes and final council budgets”.

It meanwhile urged the Department of Health to develop a race equality strategy and action plan around the development and implementation of the Dilnot recommendations.

The Trust also called for personalisation to be implemented at 100% by all local authorities by 2013. “The Department of Health needs to conduct equality impact assessments through the implementation process to ensure that BME families, service users and carers are supported and benefiting from the autonomy that personalisation promotes,” it said.

The Trust also recommended that local government should:

• "Establish a network to support local authorities to develop best practice around race equality to minimise the impact of the cuts on BME communities;
• Develop best practice guidance to ensure all local authorities are carrying out the Public
 Sector Equality Duty;
• Establish a team of peer reviewers to support council leaders, elected Mayors, councillors and
 cabinet members to develop robust processes around the cuts and equality impact assessments, and to produce an action plan to support BME communities;
• Have a roundtable meeting between BME national and regional organisations and senior leaders in local government to develop a joint approach around localism and race equality."

At the metropolitan, county council and unitary level, the charity called for the production of an annual impact report on race equality. There should also be support for final council budgets and decision making processes based on robust equality impact assessments and engagement with BME communities and third sector organisations.

It also said there should a review of the impact of cuts on the implementation of the joint strategic needs assessment and the likely impact on BME communities.

Shadow health and well-being boards should assess the impact of cuts on BME communities and the 
level of disinvestment in BME third sector and grass roots community organisations, the Trust added.