Equality off balance

"Do we consider equality of opportunity to be a fundamental value of our society? Looking at the behaviour of the government in relation to the equality duties under the Equality Act 2010 (EqA 2010), one might be tempted to think not.

In the recent attempt at dismantling the effectiveness of the public sector equality duties under the EqA 2010, two approaches have been adopted by the government. One is the straightforward use of power. The EqA 2010 permitted a government to make regulations on the approach that certain public authorities would have to adopt in relation to the public sector equality duties. The government decided that authorities should not be “burdened” with the requirement to publish the volume of information that the previous government had required them to produce in order to demonstrate that they were complying with the public sector equality duty.

Instead, the government stated that the emphasis would be on authorities being ‘transparent’ about the way in which they were complying with the duty. A piece of red tape burnt quietly on the bonfire, and the regulations that were produced required these authorities to set an objective but did not require them to take any particular steps in pursuit of that objective. They would be judged, it was argued, on the same basis as any other public authority: had they had due regard to the equality objectives contained in s 149 of EqA 2010?

The second line of attack is rather less straightforward. It is a kind of ‘nudge’ approach to the application of laws by administrative bodies. Thus Eric Pickles’s aphoristic best value guidance suggested that local authorities should not feel obliged to gather diversity data concerning service users...”

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