Measuring Equality in Northern Ireland – Monitoring Framework 2022
The Equality Commission NI has developed a monitoring framework for Measuring Equality in Northern Ireland. This framework will enable the Commission to identify existing and emerging inequalities and track improvements over time. The Commission plans to periodically produce a succinct statement from the framework, covering particular outcome areas.
The Framework identifies six broad areas of life in Northern Ireland to be covered:
- Education
- Employment
- Participation in Public life
- Health and Social Care
- Standards of living and housing
- Communities that are welcoming and inclusive
These areas contain a total of nine equality outcome areas. Each outcome area has associated specific priority areas with potential population indicators and sources of evidence.
Consultation
As part of the process of developing the monitoring framework for Measuring Equality in Northern Ireland, we undertook a consultation process during a twelve-week period. We engaged with individuals and stakeholder organisations that are producers and/or users of equality data. We asked about their specific views on the outcome areas, the key priority areas, the population indicator(s), and sources of evidence proposed, to assist us in developing this framework.
The contributions and recommendations gathered from our stakeholders, data users and producers who took part in the consultation are recorded in the consultation report (pdf) and data sources (pdf)
The consultation exercise closed in early April 2022. The consultation documents are available below:
The Commission is working to improve the equality data available, and produced by a range of organisations, across equality grounds. This will help promote equality and tackle inequality in Northern Ireland.
The Commission’s framework Measuring Equality in Northern Ireland and its further development and use in producing statements on Equality in Northern Ireland will also be used to seek improvements by others in their data development and address data gaps.
The Commission has long identified the
need for robust equality data in Northern Ireland, across key areas and for various equality grounds; for example, through its previous work on key inequalities.
In 2020, the Commission developed a briefing note on the need for equality data (pdf)