Monday, May 10, 2010

Thoughts on the New Equality Act

The Equality Act is a recent equality initiative proposed by the Government Equalities Office that will come into force starting October 2010. This Act was initially introduced in the House of Commons on 24th April, 2009 and the Equality Bill received Royal Assent on the 8th of April, 2010 and formally became The Equality Act (Government Equalities Office 2010). This initiative will have far reaching impacts on a wide range of areas including gender and racial equality in the workplace and would form the basis of straightforward guidance for employers, service providers and public bodies.

As of 2010, there were nine major pieces of discrimination legislation, around 100 statutory instruments setting out rules and regulations, and more than 2,500 pages of guidance and statutory codes of practice. This includes the Race Relations Amendment Act 2000, which amended the Race Relations Act
1976. The amended Race Relations Act outlaws discrimination in all functions of public authorities, including procurement. It also gives public authorities a positive legal duty to eliminate discrimination and to promote
equality of opportunity and good race relations in carrying out all their functions.

The Equality Act will also have a large impact on public procurement. A report from the Equalities Office from April 2009 provides an in-depth look at the Equalities Bill (Government Equalities Office 2009). According to this report, the Equality Act will have three main objectives concerning
public sector procurement:

. Introducing a new public sector duty to consider reducing socioeconomic inequalities
. Putting a new Equality Duty on public bodies
. Using public procurement to improve equality

The Bill makes it clear that public bodies can use procurement to drive equality. With an annual expenditure of around £175 billion every year on goods and services - about 13% of GDP - the public sector has an important opportunity to use its purchasing power to promote equality where possible. Moreover, the Equality Bill would also take the current legal obligation for the public sector to consider the needs of women, disabled people and ethnic minorities, and extend it to also cover age, sexual orientation, gender, and religion or belief.

-Alex Kiselinchev


You can find the full text of the Equalities Act here. (.pdf)