Introduction and scope

This document constitutes the Equality Impact Assessment (EQIA) undertaken in respect of The Building (Scotland) Amendment (No.2) Regulations 2022 as they relate to standards for the installation of Electric Vehicle (EV) charge point sockets and enabling EV infrastructure in new domestic and non-domestic buildings.

The Scope of the Equality Impact Assessment

The Building (Scotland) Amendment (No.2) Regulations 2022 will introduce standards that will further increase the availability of EV charge points and infrastructure in all new domestic and non-domestic buildings, both publically and privately. Our overall approach to the decarbonisation of transport is to enable a more sustainable travel and transport system but we must also ensure that this is a just transition, where no-one is left behind.

We accessed these new standards against the protected characteristics (age, disability, gender reassignment, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation) and whether there would be detrimental impacts with regards to someone’s socio-economic background or where they live.

There are concerns around the availability and accessibility of EV charging infrastructure, and wider issues around the opportunity for everyone to own an EV, particularly for those that live and work in disadvantaged communities. However, given that the universality of these standards will mean that all domestic and non-domestic buildings with parking, regardless of the type of housing (private or social) and location in Scotland, will have to constructed with EV charging infrastructure included, the overwhelming majority of which will be EV charge points, we accessed that there was no detrimental impact across the characteristics outlined above and therefore no need for a full EQIA.

However, whilst these new standards for EV charging will be to the benefit of everyone over the coming years, we recognised that there was a need to ensure that there was a minimum level of provision for accessible parking spaces. Given the aim of this legislation is to help provide a charging environment that will give all car users the confidence to make their next car an electric car, the Scottish Government believes it is appropriate to guide developers with regards to provision of EV charging infrastructure for accessible parking spaces.

Therefore, the scope of this EQIA is to focus on the impact of our proposals with regards to accessible parking spaces and those that use those spaces, which are primarily people with disabilities (including blue badge holders).

In addition, whilst our overall assessment is that these standards will be beneficial to Island communities and that the impact will not be negligibly different from what we expect the impact to be on the rest of Scotland, we will publish a light-touch Island Communities Impact Assessment.