Email sent to members on Monday 20th April 2026.
As part of our campaign to defend jobs and working conditions at the University of Nottingham, we will be sending regular emails, authored by different UCU members, examining key elements of management’s restructuring plans. Today we look at the implications of missing Equality Impact Assessments for staff. Feel free to share this post with non-UCU members in your area.
When Equality Becomes an Afterthought: EIA Failures and What They Mean for Us All
Across the sector, we are seeing rapid institutional change: course closures, workload intensification, restructuring, and cuts to resources. At the University of Nottingham, Future Nottingham is steamrolling a number of cuts and proposed cuts: 48 courses; high staff student ratios; the Hopper Bus service; journal access; office cleaning, to name just a few. But alongside the pace and scale of change, something critical is being quietly sidelined: equality.
Equality Impact Assessments (EIAs) are not optional extras. They are a legal requirement under the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED), designed to ensure that institutions actively consider how decisions affect people with protected characteristics. In theory, EIAs should be a safeguard against discrimination. In practice, they are increasingly absent, incomplete, or superficial.
Our local tracking of EIA compliance reveals a deeply concerning pattern:
- Major structural changes – including increases in student-staff ratios, reductions in research time, and cuts to services – are being presented in the Business Case to Council on 6 May with no completed EIAs.
- Where EIAs do exist (for example, course suspensions – the only one UCU has seen to date), they are partial and limited, focusing narrowly on students while ignoring impacts on staff.
- In some cases, decisions (journal access; office cleaning) have already been made and implemented months before any EIA is completed, raising serious questions about whether equality considerations are being meaningfully applied at all.
This is not a technical oversight. It is a systemic failure.
Why EIAs Matter
EIAs are meant to ensure that institutions have ‘due regard’ to three core aims:
- Eliminating discrimination
- Advancing equality of opportunity
- Fostering good relations
When EIAs are missing or inadequate, these duties are not being met. And the consequences are not abstract.
- Increasing student-staff ratios disproportionately affects staff with disabilities, caring responsibilities, and those already managing high workloads.
- Reductions in research time may deepen existing inequalities in promotion and progression, particularly for women and minoritised staff.
- Cuts to services (like libraries, transport, and cleaning) can have uneven impacts across different groups, including disabled staff and students.
Without proper EIAs, these impacts remain invisible – and therefore unchallenged.
The Problem of ‘Tick-Box’ Equality
Even where EIAs are produced, there is a growing concern that they function as a tick-box exercise rather than a meaningful process.
A basic or retrospective EIA – especially one that only considers a subset of those affected – does not meet the standard of ‘due regard.’ Equality must be considered before decisions are made, not after they are implemented.
What we are seeing instead is a hollowing out of equality processes:
- EIAs completed late (or not at all)
- Narrow framing of who counts (students but not staff)
- Lack of evidence or engagement with unions and affected groups
This undermines both the spirit and the letter of the law.
What Can Be Done?
There are several routes for challenging EIA failures:
1. Internal challenge
Members can:
- Request EIAs and supporting evidence
- Raise concerns through formal structures (e.g. committees, grievances)
- Push for transparency around decision-making (ask to see meeting notes, where the EIA was discussed)
2. External escalation
Where internal processes fail, issues can be escalated to bodies such as the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), which has powers to investigate and enforce compliance.
3. Legal routes
In some cases, decisions made without proper equality consideration can be challenged through judicial review. Importantly, such challenges must be made promptly.
A Collective Responsibility
EIA failures are not just procedural issues – they are about whose voices are heard, whose experiences are recognised, and whose wellbeing is prioritised.
For UCU members, this is a collective concern. Equality is not a separate agenda from workload, job security, or working conditions – it is embedded within them. When equality processes fail, it is often the most vulnerable colleagues who bear the brunt.
We need to:
- Keep documenting and evidencing these failures (contact us/your local rep and let us know)
- Continue raising them through union structures
- Build collective pressure for transparency and accountability
Because equality should not be an afterthought. It should be at the heart of every decision our institution make.
If you have concerns about EIAs in your area, please get in touch with your UCU rep. Together, we can ensure that equality is not sidelined through Future Nottingham.
On behalf of the UCU branch committe
