| Consultation on Equality Act within Public Sector is Launched |
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A consultation on the public sector Equality Duty under the Equality Act 2010 has been launched by the Government Equalities Office. The Equality Act 2010: The public sector Equality Duty document, launched by Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone, seeks views on draft regulations which recommend increasing the volume of information that public sector organisations must publish. According to the Government, the aim is to make efforts to reduce inequality more transparent and scrap what it calls "box-ticking bureaucracy". The Equality Duty will replace three separate duties that require Government departments, local authorities and other public bodies to take into account gender, race and disability equality both as employers and when making policy decisions and delivering services. The duty simplifies this requirement and also extends it to fully cover age, religion and belief, sexual orientation and gender reassignment. Under the plans, employers will be expected to publish information relating to their performance of the general equality duty every year. Public bodies with 150 staff or more will be required to publish data on equality in their workforces. Employers will also be required to carry out impact assessments on their policies and practices, and set outcome objectives every four years. The general duty is expected to come into force in April 2011, and one of the key changes from the previous Government's proposals is that organisations will have the freedom to buy goods or services from suppliers in the way they see fit, rather than it being prescribed how they should conduct procurement activity in terms of meeting specific equality criteria. |