Specific duties for England laid before Parliament

The government announced today (28 June 2011) that it has laid the Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties) Regulations 2011 before Parliament for approval.

Subject to approval, the government expects the regulations to come into force before 19 July 2011.

The specific duties regulations are intended to support higher education institutions (HEIs) to meet the requirements of the public sector equality duty. The equality duty means that HEIs need to have 'due regard' to the need to eliminate unlawful discrimination, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations. The equality duty covers age, gender reassignment, disability, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion and belief, sex and sexual orientation. Marriage and civil partnership is covered in relation to the need to discriminate discrimination in employment.

Specific duties

The specific duties regulations require HEIs to publish:

• One or more equality objective by 6 April 2012, and thereafter at least every four years. Equality objectives must be specific and measurable and relate to the achievement of the equality duty.
• Information to demonstrate their compliance with the equality duty by 31 January 2012 and thereafter at least annually.

The information that HEIs are required to publish must relate to employees (for HEIs employing 150 or more staff) and others affected by their policies and practices. This would include students and other service users who share a relevant protected characteristic.

The information must be published in a manner that is accessible to the public and can be published within another published document.

Assessing the effect of policies and practices

There are no requirements in the draft regulations to conduct impact assessments or engage people from protected groups.

However, the government has made clear in its policy review paper Equality Act 2010: The public sector Equality Duty: reducing bureaucracy that:

'... under the requirements of the general duty to have 'due regard' to the matters set out in the Act, public bodies will need to understand the effect of their policies and practices on equality - this will involve looking at evidence, engaging with people, staff, service users and others and considering the effect of what they do on the whole community.'

The Equality and Human Rights Commission will be providing guidance on good practice on assessing the effect of policies and practices. In the meantime ECU recommends that HEIs review and revise their existing impact assessment processes to ensure that they are fit for purpose and cover the new protected characteristics.

Further information

You can find further information about the Equality Act on our dedicated homepage

• Equality Act 2010 homepage

Email equality.act@ecu.ac.uk with any queries.