The equality screening document published by the Department for Communities (DfC) last week was produced after a complaint was lodged by campaigners.
Deputy director of the Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ), Daniel Holder says he asked DfC officials in January for its screening template.
After getting no response he sent a reminder.
After again receiving no response the human rights group made an official complaint.
Days later, on February 2, a screening document appeared on the department’s website.
However, Mr Holder says his organisation voiced concerns about the screening document and the department later launched a review resulting in last week’s revised report.
The department said the equality screening exercise was not carried out before the halls scheme was launched “due to an oversight by departmental officials”.
According to the Equality Commission’s website the “purpose of screening is to identify those policies that are likely to have an impact on equality of opportunity and/or good relations”.
“Screening is one of the key tools to enable public authorities to fulfill their statutory obligations and mainstream the Section 75 equality and good relations duties into policy development and service delivery,” it said
“It provides an opportunity to improve decision-making and support ‘evidence based’ policy making.”
The commission’s website also says “those policies identified as having significant implications for equality of opportunity must be subject to full impact assessment”.
If issues are identified during the screen process a full equality impact assessment is then carried out.
Mr Holder said: “Originally the department ‘forgot’ to equality screen the community halls fund.
“When this was spotted they put out a flawed document that avoided any equality analysis of who got what despite being done after the money had been allocated.
“We complained to trigger a review to try and get the equality test done properly. This is the document we now have.
“The new equality screening document sets out that the funding particularly benefits the halls of Protestant faith-based organisations for whom it argues there is previously unmet need.”
A spokeswoman for DfC said: “Due to an oversight by Departmental officials, an equality screening exercise was not carried out before the pilot community halls scheme was launched.
“An equality screening exercise was published on 2 February 2017.
“This screening concluded that this policy will have no adverse impact on any Section 75 category.”
The spokeswoman added that the revised screening process has also concluded the policy “will have no adverse impact on any Section 75 category”.
