Source · Select Committees · Women and Equalities Committee
Recommendation 8
8
Not Addressed
Paragraph: 55
The Equality Act 2010’s Public Sector Equality Duty is intended to ensure public authorities have...
Recommendation
The Equality Act 2010’s Public Sector Equality Duty is intended to ensure public authorities have due regard, including in their decision making, policies and service delivery, to achieving the Act’s objectives, which include the elimination of discrimination against groups of people who share a protected characteristic. The Equality and Human Rights Commission has published non-statutory technical guidance on the Duty. This provides public authorities with a detailed Unequal impact? Coronavirus, disability and access to services: full Report 43 and comprehensive guide to the law, but, while it can be admissible as evidence in the courts, it does not have its own legal authority. We believe disabled people’s experiences of public services during the pandemic make the case for a strengthening of the Public Sector Equality Duty, outweighing any concerns about additional burdens on authorities. The Government should consent to the Equality and Human Rights Commission issuing a statutory Code of Practice on the Public Sector Equality Duty.
Government response summary AI-generated
The government's response did not address the recommendation for it to consent to a statutory Code of Practice on the Public Sector Equality Duty, instead focusing on social care funding.
Summary of the government's response below — read the verbatim text to verify.
Paragraph Reference:
55
Government Response
Not Addressed
HM Government · verbatim extract
Not Addressed
Fourth Special Report of Session 2019–21 7 As the Committee’s report notes, the EHRC’s existing technical guidance on the Public Sector Equality Duty is detailed and substantial, and public bodies are encouraged to consult it as a source for supporting their understanding of, and compliance with, the duty. Making guidance statutory would not change the way that public bodies interact with it: it is already to their advantage to use the guidance to ensure they are meeting their responsibilities in a constructive, meaningful way, and to minimise any risk of legal challenge that they might face. There is also now extensive case-law where courts have made rulings on compliance with the duty in specific circumstances, and this is of course available both to the courts themselves and to public authorities and their legal advisers. Given this, the Government does not see any compelling need to depart from the normal preference of its predecessors against additional statutory codes of practice. Impacts on Health and Social Care
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