In this module we're going to be looking at your obligations under The Gender Equality Act 2020, for Gender Impact Assessments.
So, now we're just going to take a moment to look at what you need to do to comply with the Act and make positive changes towards gender equality. So, if you are a public entity with over 50 staff, you must do Gender Impact Assessments for all new policies, programs, and services that directly and significantly impact the public, as well as those up for review. Now I can hear many people asking, ‘What does direct and significant actually mean?’. And we want to encourage you to think deeply about your knowledge and expertise of your contexts. You do understand your context better than anyone else. And so, if you think it has a direct and significant impact on the public, it probably does. There's also further guidance forthcoming from the Commission, so do keep an eye out for that.
A guiding question that might help you sort of direct your understanding as to whether the impact of a policy, service or program could be considered direct, is to ask yourself whether the primary focus of the policy, service or program is the public, or a certain segment of the public. And if the answer is yes, then your policy, program or service will have a direct impact on the public.
You'll also be required to report on Gender Impact Assessments every two years in your progress report.
So, every two years beginning in 2023, your progress reports must include what policies, programs, services were subject to a Gender Impact Assessment, and also importantly what actions you took as a result of the Gender Impact Assessment. Your first project, progress report is due by the 31st of October 2023. Unless you are a university who is reporting for the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA), your first progress report will be due for submission at a different time than other defined entities. So, your relevant reporting period is April 2021 to the 31st of March, 2023, and this is because it will align with your WGEA obligations. All other entities, your first progress report is due by the 31st of October 2023, and of course it's very important to keep a record of all of your Gender Impact Assessments, so that you can fulfill your reporting requirements.
So again, in its most simple form under The Gender Equality Act 2020, a Gender Impact Assessment looks at these three things. It looks at assessing how a policy, program or service affects people of different genders, and it seeks to explain how you will design or change the policy, program, or service to better meet the needs of people of different genders. How will it address gender inequality and promote gender equality? So, how are you achieving those broader objectives under The Gender Equality Act 2020. And finally, it must apply an intersectional approach, so it must consider how the end users experience of gender inequality, may be shaped by other aspects of their identity, and that includes aboriginality, age, disability, ethnicity, gender identity, race, religion, sexual orientation, but also a host of other identities as well it is not only those listed there.
It's also important to note that applying an intersectional approach doesn't come at the end of the process, as it's listed here, this is just listed as such for ease of explanation, but really that intersectional approach must be laid across and integrated into your assessment, and also your explanation.
Just a quick overview of your timeline for your obligations, you can see above the timeline in the white bubbles, your obligations for the other obligations are part of the Gender Equality Act, and under the line in the blue bubbles, those are the ones we're concerned with for your GIA. So, commencing on the 31st of March 2021, already we have ongoing GIA obligations already commenced. And then 2023 Your first progress report is due on the 31st of October 2023, and every two years after that.
So really to sum up, when considering applying a GIA, we need to think about The Gender Equality Act 2020 and the requirement you have to undertake a Gender Impact Assessment, when you're developing a policy, program or service which has that direct and significant impact on the public. But of course, given the benefits of Gender Impact Assessments, it's really a good idea to consider the impacts of any decision no matter how big or small, so you could look at doing a light touch Gender Impact Assessment to smaller, more discreet policies, or you may need to think about looking at, you know, bigger, bigger policies and bigger GIA processes. And that speaks to the next point really around, scalability, so you should be scaling your GIA approach to align with the particular policy, program or service. So, as I mentioned, if you've got quite a discreet policy, or maybe a short-term policy or service in something you could do, quite light touch, or quite briefly, but still make sure you're applying that gender lens and that GIA approach to that. On the other hand, if you're doing a much bigger, or a really, you know, multi-year, very large policy, program or service and rolling out something, you know, quite wide scale, then you should scale your GIAs to align with that scale as well.
So really, to sum up. Just by asking ourselves some key questions, collecting data, collecting the insights of people in our community and also developing some options, based on that evidence that we've collected and that data that we've collected, you can ensure that you're considering the needs and experiences of all Victorians in this process.
Now the list of GIAs, where you could apply to policies, programs or services is almost infinite, but just some suggestions you could apply a GIA to include, a complaint handling process or investigations, public communications and engagement, all manner of planning, urban, rural, regional, open place, open planning spaces, recreation spaces, grants management, environmental land rehabilitation, transport; there's an infinite number of policies that you could be applying a GIA to but remembering that as long as there is that direct and significant impact on the public, it is something you should be applying a GIA to.
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