Guidance note for completing a GIA on a Council Plan

What is this resource?

This guide is designed to help you do a gender impact assessment (GIA) for:

• Council Plans
• Other important strategies

Doing a GIA on your Council Plan helps you make sure the Plan delivers fair outcomes for everyone. The goal is to ensure that policies, programs, and services meet the needs of all people in the community. The GIA process helps Councils to:

• See how their plans affect people of different genders
• Find any differences or unfairness
• Take action to fix any inequalities

Councils need to report their GIA results to the Commissioner in their progress reports every two years. You need to show what you have done to meet the needs of people of all genders.

This resource complements the GIA toolkit and relevant resources. It’s designed to provide best practice advice on how to do a GIA when developing the Council Plan. How councils use this advice will depend on their needs, resources, and timelines.

This resource was developed with GenderWorks Australia. Municipal Association of Victoria also provided support.

Who is this resource for?

This resource is for at council staff, including but not limited to:

• Gender equality specialists
• Executive management and leaders
• Governance experts
• Business and corporate planning specialists
• Councillors.

How is the resource structured?

The guidance is organised into three parts:

1. preparation and planning
2. successfully conducting a GIA
3. embedding and sustaining impact.

In the Preparation and planning stage, you should:

• Decide what you want to achieve with your gender impact assessment (GIA) for the Council Plan.
• Decide how much of the Council Plan the GIA will cover.
• Align the GIA process to the Council Plan timeline and start as early as possible.
• Involve everyone early on so everyone knows their role and what is expected of them.

In the Successfully conducting a GIA stage, you should:

• Involve diverse voices in community engagement, especially underrepresented groups
• Collect and analyse gender-disaggregated data to understand community trends and differences
• Use inclusive language and messaging that challenge gender stereotypes
• Allocate resources fairly to promote gender equality and address existing inequalities.

In the Embedding and sustaining impact stage, you should:

• Track progress using performance indicators and feedback to improve the GIA process
• Report progress every two years, informing the community about gender equality actions
• Continue integrating gender equality into future planning cycles
• Build internal capabilities to ensure long-term, lasting change.

Download the guidance note

Download the guidance note below (Word or PDF).