Transcript Surrey Heath Borough Council

Equalities Legislation
• Race Relations Act
1976
• Race Relations
(Amendment) Act
2000
• Disability
Discrimination Acts
1995 & 2005
• Sex Discrimination
Act 1975
• Employment Equality
(Religion or Belief)
Regulations 2003
• Employment
Equality (Sexual
Orientation)
Regulations 2003
• Equality Bill 2005
• Age Regulations
• Equal Pay Act
The Race Relations Act 1976 (as amended by the
Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000)
• makes it unlawful to treat a person less favourably than
another on racial grounds. These cover grounds of race,
colour, nationality (including citizenship), and national or
ethnic origin.
• (Amendment) Act outlawed discrimination (direct and
indirect) and victimisation in all public authority functions
not previously covered by the RRA, with only limited
exceptions.
• placed a general duty on specified public authorities to
promote race equality and good race relations.
• also specific duties for listed organisations including the
production of Race Equality Schemes.
Disability Discrimination Act
1995
Prohibits discrimination against disabled
people in the areas of employment, the
provision of goods, facilities, services
and premises, and education; and
provides for regulations to improve
access to public transport to be made.
Disability Discrimination
• since December 1996 it has been unlawful to
treat disabled people less favourably than
other people for a reason related to their
disability
• since October 1999 reasonable adjustments
have to be made for disabled people, such as
providing extra help or making changes to the
way in which services are provided.
• since October 2004 reasonable adjustments to
the physical features of premises to overcome
physical barriers to access have to be made.
DDA 2005
• the DDA 2005 amends the DDA 1995 to
place a duty on public bodies to
promote equality of opportunity for
disabled people.
• The Disability Equality Duty will come
into force on 5th December 2006.
The Sex Discrimination Act
(as amended) 1975
Applies to women and men of any age,
including children
Prohibits sex discrimination against individuals
in the areas of
• employment
• education
• provision of goods, facilities and services
• in the disposal or management of premises.
Employment Equality (Religion
or Belief) Regulations 2003
• Outlaw discrimination (direct
discrimination, indirect discrimination,
harassment and victimisation) in
employment and vocational training on
the grounds of religion or belief.
• The regulations apply to discrimination
on grounds of religion, religious belief or
similar philosophical belief.
The Equality Bill
Introduced in Parliament on the 19 May
2005. The Bill’s main provisions include:
• Creation of a single equality body - CEHR
• Prohibit discrimination on the grounds of
religion and belief in the provision of goods,
facilities and services
• Gender Duty
Gender Equality Duty
The Gender Equality Duty came into force
April 2007 and requires local authorities
to:
• Eliminate unlawful discrimination
• Promote equality of opportunity
between men and women
Employment Equality (Sexual
Orientation) Regulations 2003
• Outlaw discrimination (direct discrimination,
indirect discrimination, harassment and
victimisation) in employment and vocational
training on the grounds of sexual orientation.
• The regulations apply to discrimination on
grounds of orientation towards persons of the
same sex (lesbians and gay men) and the
same and opposite sex (bisexuals).
Age Regulations
Due to come into force 1 October 2006.
• The regulations will cover access to help and
guidance, recruitment, promotion,
development, termination, perks and pay and
employees of all ages.
• The upper age limits for unfair dismissal and
redundancy will be removed.
Age Regulations cont’d
• A national default retirement age of 65 will be introduced
making compulsory retirement below age 65 unlawful
(unless it can be objectively justified).
• All employees will have the ‘right to request’ to work
beyond the default retirement age of 65 or any other
retirement age set by the company and all employers will
have a ‘duty to consider’ requests from employees to
work beyond 65.
The Equal Pay Act (as
amended) 1970
Gives an individual a right to the same
contractual pay and benefits as a person of
the opposite sex in the same employment,
where the man and the woman are doing:
like work; or work related as equivalent
under an analytical job evaluation study; or
work that is proved to be of equal value.
Key concepts in legislation
Direct discrimination
Occurs when a person
or group of people is
treated less
favourably than
another person or
group is, or would
be treated in similar
circumstances.
Indirect discrimination
When a requirement or
condition, for which
there is no justification,
is applied equally to all
groups but which in
effect disadvantage a
particular group e.g.
dress code, height
requirement.