PSO 2800 - Inside Time

PSO 2800 Annexes – Page 135.6. Impact assessments must be publicly available. For this reason, they should be written inplain language and should not include abbreviations and technical terms that areunintelligible to the layperson. Establishments must consider how to publish their impactassessments, and as a minimum they must be readily available to any member of staff,prisoner or visitor who requests a copy.Who should be responsible for conducting impact assessments?5.7. Impact assessments must be a part of the general policy-making and managementdecision-making processes in the prison. As such, each impact assessment must be theresponsibility of a relevant manager, usually the functional head responsible for the policyor function to which it refers. The Race Equality Officer will provide advice on impactassessments, and the Race Equality Action Team must consider completed impactassessments, but the responsibility for their completion must rest with a relevant manager,and not with the Race Equality Officer.What must be impact assessed?5.8. In accordance with the RR(A)A, all functions or policies of the Prison Service that areconsidered relevant to race equality must be impact assessed. In this context, a 'function'is any activity of the Prison Service, and a 'policy' is any prescription, whether formal orinformal, written or customary, on how a function is to be carried out. As such it includespolicies, strategies, guides, manuals and common practice. This requirement applies toexisting functions and policies, and also to new ones as they are introduced.5.9. In the light of the number of existing areas that require assessment, priority was given toareas identified as failing by the Commission for Racial Equality in the report of theirinvestigation into the Prison Service published in 2003. Establishments were initiallyrequired to perform impact assessments on the ten functions or policies in list A of annex 3,and regular review of these areas remains mandatory.5.10. In addition to the ten mandatory areas for impact assessments, establishments must drawup a list of the other functions and policies that are considered to be relevant to raceequality. This list must be agreed annually by the Area Manager.5.11. The impact assessment list is likely to include the areas in list B of annex 3. This list shouldbe supplemented with any other existing areas that are identified locally using thescreening tool at annex 4.5.12. All new functions and policies that are being introduced, and any proposed changes toexisting policies that are being reviewed, should be assessed for relevance to race equalityusing the screening tool. Where found to be relevant, they should be included in the listand impact assessed, preferably prior to implementation, or where immediateimplementation is necessary, as soon as possible afterwards.5.13 The impact assessment list must be reviewed annually.The Impact Assessment process5.14. Establishments must produce a programme setting out when each of the listed areas willbe impact assessed and how often each area will be reviewed. This programme must beagreed with the Area Manager annually and copied to the Race Equality Action Group.Issue No. 264 issue date 25/09/06