Equality Bill published

The Equality Bill, published today by the Government Equalities Office, will have legal and practical implications for all higher education institutions that will require them not just to eliminate discrimination, but to advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between staff and students from different equality groups.

Equality Challenge Unit, which promotes equality and diversity in higher education, highlights that universities and colleges will be required to proactively consult with, and address concerns from, all the equality groups including staff and students from different religions and of no religion, of different ages, and gay and lesbian staff and students. Currently these duties only extend to race, gender and disability.

The Bill will also extend the scope of the legislation to protect people who 'associate' with others with the protected characteristics, for instance people who are related to or who care for someone who is disabled, or of a particular religion.

It will also helpfully extend the range of lawful action available to universities and colleges to target positive action for students, for instance in relation to the provision of bursaries to students from different nationalities.

The widely heralded proposals to require public authorities to consider socio-economic disadvantage when taking strategic decisions will not generally apply to individual institutions or to the higher education funding councils.

Professor John Brooks, Vice-Chancellor of Manchester Metropolitan University and Chair of ECU welcomed the Bill, and stressed that higher education institutions need to engage with equality and diversity now more than ever.

'With the global economic crisis having an increasing impact throughout the UK, it is all the more important for the sector to reaffirm its commitment to equality and diversity to ensure that we are able to respond in a cohesive and equitable way to the considerable challenges ahead. The sector must play its part in helping to realise the potential of all our staff and students.'

ECU will be providing all institutions with an in-depth briefing on the implications of the Bill.

The government intends to consult on the practical implementation of the new public duties over the summer. ECU will be running three events in June 2009 in London, Leeds and Swansea to ensure higher education institutions have the opportunity to discuss the implication of the duties and feed into the consultation process.

Further details

A full briefing on the implications of the Equality Bill is available to download

• Equality Bill briefing
  

Details of the Equality Bill are available on the UK Parliament website

• The Equality Bill 2008-09