Assessment of equality in cultural services refers to a systematic process, the purpose of which is to examine, understand and make visible the equality work of an organization. Evaluation is a necessary part of the development of cultural services. The process helps to monitor what cultural services are doing concretely to promote equality and to chart the most important development points.

The assessment enables the personnel of cultural organisations to become more aware of their own role and work tasks as part of the organisation's equality work.

If no assessment is made, it will be very difficult to detect and realise any discriminatory structures in the operation of cultural services. As a result, the maintenance of discriminatory practices by institutions will continue and will also more easily lead to indirectly discriminatory solutions.

Equality assessment in the Non-Discrimination Act

The Non-Discrimination Act (see Chapter 2) emphasises the importance of assessment in the equality planning process.

According to Section 5 of the Non-Discrimination Act, the authority must assess how its activities affect different population groups and how equality is otherwise realised in its activities, and take the necessary measures to promote equality. Promotion measures shall be effective, appropriate and proportionate, taking into account the operating environment, resources and other circumstances of the authority.

According to the Non-Discrimination Act, the authority is obliged to draw up an equality plan in terms of both operations and personnel policy. The intention is that the equality plan also includes an assessment of the current situation of equality, conclusions on the results of the assessment, and concrete measures to promote equality.

The obligation of equality planning applies to authorities, education providers and employers who regularly employ at least 30 people.

Equality assessment is a genuine examination of non-discrimination in action

It is important to carry out an equality assessment in the activities of any cultural organisation, regardless of whether there is a legal obligation to equality planning or not. The assessment enables the cultural actor to identify discrimination in their own service and to plan concrete measures to improve equality.

Carefully conducted assessment promotes the effectiveness of non-discrimination work in such a way that organisations have knowledge and a deeper understanding of how discrimination occurs or can occur in operations and what groups it targets. This, in turn, will help to find appropriate means to address discrimination and remedy the situation.

The assessment must cover all grounds of discrimination

A cultural organisation's deeper understanding of discriminatory practices in its own activities requires that the assessment applies to all grounds for discrimination.

The grounds for discrimination prohibited by the Non-Discrimination Act are age, origin, nationality, language, religion, conviction, opinion, political activity, trade union activity, family relations, health status, disability, sexual orientation and other personal reasons. Discrimination related to gender, gender identity or gender expression is dealt with by the Equality Act.

You can read more about the promotion of equality and discrimination taking place in the field of culture in chapter 3 of the guide.

Assessment of the current situation

The process should begin with an assessment of the current situation of equality. Its aim is to analyse the activity from the perspective of possible discrimination.  

• Do people from different backgrounds have equal opportunities to operate and use the organization's cultural services?
• Are the activities and facilities accessible?
• How are the different aspects of accessibility taken into account in operations? E.g. accessible communication, accessibility through different senses, support for understanding, social and economic accessibility.
• How equal are different services from the point of view of different users? 
• What kind of discrimination occurs or can occur in the activities of the organization?
• How will diversity be realised in the programme of cultural activities (e.g. topics, authors, method of implementation)?
• What audiences does the organization reach? Who is missing from the activities? What does the organization do to reach underrepresented groups?
• What are the inclusion-enhancing structures in the organization?

After mapping the current situation, the organization considers what the desired situation would be like:

• What kind of change does the organization want to make?

Planning of measures

After defining the objectives, the planning of measures can begin.

• What steps can an organization take to get where it wants to be?
• How does the measure promote change?
• How concretely will the change take place?
• How can the measure affect different population groups? What are the positive effects of the measures? Can the measure have negative effects on different population groups?
• Has the target group been involved in the design of the measure? How will the implementation of the measure promote the inclusion of the target group?
• How realistic is the measure? Will the organization be able to implement it with existing resources (staff, budget, etc.) or will there be a need to acquire additional resources? What is the time frame for implementing the measure?

Determining the monitoring and indicators of the measures is an essential part of the planning of work. Defining indicators at the planning stage will make a significant contribution to the subsequent impact assessment. An indicator is a qualitative or quantitative measure that describes how a goal was achieved. The key to creating indicators is knowing what kind of change the organization is looking for.

• How can the implementation of the measures be monitored?
• How can the effectiveness of measures be assessed?
• How can the organization best measure the achievement of the goals it has set?
• How can an organization know that a change has occurred? What information does the organization seek? Which metrics provide sufficient information about the change that has occurred?

Work planning can be structured using, for example, the following table:

Effectiveness evaluation

The effectiveness evaluation process evaluates the change. The purpose is to obtain information on whether the measures have affected the development of equality in the organization with regard to the objectives set.

In examining the objectives set and the changes, the cultural organization seeks to answer the following questions:

• What impact have the measures had on the realization of equality and the absence of discrimination in the organisation's operations?
• To what extent have the objectives been achieved? Did the measure play a key role in achieving the objectives?
• How has the measure strengthened the equality competence of the organisation? 
• How has the measure affected the organisation's operating principles, operating culture and structural changes?
• Does the measure have wider social implications?
• What have been the strengths and weaknesses of the measures and what can be learned from them?
• Which measures were most effective, and why? 
• How should measures be updated, where should changes be made, and where could the organisation continue with the previous model?
   

The IOOI Model

For impact assessment, organisations can use, for example, the IOOI model by Bertelsmann Stiftung.

Source: Aistrich, 2014. Is it worth trying to measure effectiveness? (in Finnish) Sitra.fi. 

Read chapter 9 of the guide on how the impact chain has been utilised in practice, and what results it has achieved: Assessment and updating of the Kajaani Art Museum accessibility plan and development of the inclusion model LINKKI