Equality Act: The public sector equality duty: reducing bureaucracy

On 17 March, the government withdrew the draft Equality Act 2010 (Statutory Duties) Regulations 2011 for England, which outlined the specific duties of the public sector equality duty underpinning the Equality Act 2010.

The government published a policy review paper to seek views on their proposals for new draft regulations:

• Equality Act 2010: the public sector equality duty: reducing bureaucracy

The deadline to submit comments to the Government Equalities Office on this review paper is 21 April 2011.

ECU response

ECU has submitted a response to the review paper. We have raised the following points:

• The policy paper equates equality with unnecessary bureaucratic burden, which we consider misguided.
• Without clear, detailed and more prescriptive regulation public bodies may feel unsure of how to meet the general duty, which runs the risk of increasing inequality in the higher education sector.
• ECU is concerned that the duty to publish information will not be sufficient for the public to hold public bodies to account. Without a broad common framework for the types of data required, it will be difficult for the public to compare and interpret the data. It will also be harder to highlight and tackle historic and continued inequalities such as the gender pay gap and there will be a loss of trend data.
• The removal of the requirement to publish details of engagement, equality analysis, and information used in undertaking analysis will lead to some public bodies choosing not to undertake such work. If the intention is that public bodies will be obliged to undertake engagement and analysis it would be more helpful to reflect this in the regulations rather than the guidance. The higher education sector, among others, would value clear and detailed regulations.
• The removal of the requirement to set out how progress will be measured goes against the principle of accountability. The public will not be able to hold public authorities to account over their equality objectives if they do not know what a 'measurable result' looks like.

Download the response

You can download a copy of our full response:

• ECU response to the GEO review paper: The public sector equality duty: reducing bureaucracy (PDF)
• ECU response to the GEO review paper: The public sector equality duty: reducing bureaucracy (Word)