The 2001 census showed Buddhist, Hinduism, Sikhism, Islam and Judaism being also practiced in the UK.  According to the Family Resources Survey 2002/3, about 10 million adults in Britain are covered by the Disability Discrimination Act.  There are over 6.9 million disabled people who are of working age (Labour force survey June 2006).  Finally the Government is using the figure of 5-7% of the population for lesbian, gay and bisexual people, which Stonewall feels is a reasonable estimate.

 The aforementioned data demonstrates that equality groups are clearly not invisible and have a wide representation in society as consumers, service users and employees etc.  Equality legislation has been introduced to ensure protection of these users of public services and the Public Duty under the Equality Bill will continue this.  However what does this really mean for these prescribed equality groups? Public organisations all have some where in their promotional material or websites reference to a ‘real commitment to equality and diversity’ and or an equality and diversity policy to promote the same as well as schemes and processes in place. 

 So why is Equality still not seen as a main driver in performance and delivery.  Issues such as:

• lack of resources to consult and engage properly;
• lack of equality data and
• when (if at all) to impact assess

continuously arise as problematic.  The underlying fact is that Equality is still seen as an ‘add on’ and despite efforts by organisations to mainstream, it is still seen as a bureaucratic and time-consuming process which most people do not really see the benefit of.  Until organisations start seeing Equalities as a real business objective rather than a cumbersome issue, nothing will really change.  

Also a lack of money and budget constraints should not take away a legal obligation by organisations to show how their policies and functions take equality into consideration.  This has been clearly demonstrated in the recent Fawcett case against the Government  where the Society’s solicitor has indicated

“………………Firstly, an equality impact assessment must be conducted before policy decisions are taken.

“Secondly, where an assessment reveals a risk of discrimination, urgent action must be taken to address those risks.  Clearly, if the equality impact is not even assessed as a starting point, a public authority cannot start to consider what steps to take to mitigate any inequality.”

Compliance is only part of the solution, what is needed is a radical and innovative approach which needs to be demonstrated by those in senior positions to show that real equality objectives do matter and are part of everyday performance.  Huge cuts should not mean that equalities should suffer, what is needed is for equalities to be include in an organisation’s thinking when they are looking to pool resources and work more innovatively.  Some of the things to address are:

• Public organisations pooling resources together in geographical areas to invest in setting up a central database to capture the relevant equality data which then can be accessed by a range of organisations to conduct relevant equality projects.
•  Organisations when working in partnership should have a consistent approach to Equality Impact Assessments in order that data and actions captured can be stored centrally and shared accordingly.
•  Develop a local information and knowledge bank around good practice and case studies around equality and diversity.
•  Set up a local performance equalities task group with representation from senior management to discuss and work towards equality objectives as recognised in that area.
•  Much of the equality data and information is already in your area, all that is needed is for this knowledge to be researched and captured – this will involve outreach work with third sector organisations and providers.

 If your organisation is committed to ensuring that equality groups receive a fair and equitable service, then now is the time to ensure that ‘Equality’ is under a main heading on your agenda and does not fall into the category of ‘any other business’.

Who is responsible for making it better? Who should be ensuring that future generations are not cursed by their inheritance? The primary responsibility for child rearing has to remain with the family, but it is also true, as the African proverb has it, that “it takes a village to bring up a child”. We are all responsible. And the public sector is responsible, on all behalf of all the members of the UK village, for the essential support services.

This is not a new issue. It is, however, difficult for the managers of public services to address. The answer, enshrined in current equalities legislation, requires that all public service activities – that is, functions and policies, whether existing or proposed – go through an equalities impact assessment (EIA). The EIA should identify the extent to which an activity might have a positive or negative differential impact on individual members of specific groups. As a result, action can be planned to correct any deficiencies. The problem is that EIAs can be resource intensive, inconsistent and cumbersome. They can become a further bureaucratic overhead on already overstretched managers. They can be a distraction from proper performance management, placing unwarranted emphasis on a paper compliance process. They can hold back the mainstreaming of equalities, by turning the Equality function into a police force and the service manager into the potential wrongdoer. They can completely fail to do what they are supposed to do.

Earlier this year, Black Radley commissioned research into the Equality Impact Assessment process amongst local authorities. 75% of respondents said that their organisation’s EIA support for mainstreaming of equalities was not good. 60% believed that their EIA process was not good in supporting legislative compliance. And 70% believed that their EIA approach was neither cost nor time efficient. In short, the vast majority of council respondents believe that the way they do equality impact assessment is not fully supportive of service performance nor legislative compliance.”

So how do we get EIA right?

The first thing to recognise is that EIA is about service performance. It is not  about a perceived “politically correct”, aggressive equalities agenda – it is about making sure that customers and clients get good service. To do that, we need to know, and respond to, their different needs: that’s what performance management is. And, as a flavour of performance, it’s a task that belongs to line management and follows the normal planning and performance management process.

Recognise that EIA is also about proportionality: you need only pursue the EIA process as far as the activity in question warrants. It is simply ludicrous to put all services through a detailed EIA process: indeed, most services need only a limited degree of examination or none at all. So proportionality requires judgment, management judgment – consistent and informed management judgment.

Build EIA conformance into the internal audit process, leaving the Equalities function as internal support, conscience and service for front line managers; as an information resource and source of expertise on different groups and their needs; as the team with responsibility for the continuous improvement (but not management) of a streamlined and consistent EIA process.

So what is the solution?

Any good case studies for performance improvement out there?

Is this ever going to be enforced?

Are they just waiting to see how the Equality Act will be implemented?

If the narrative around assessments and the associated case studies were less about avoiding sanctions and penalties and more about how this process can add real value to an organisation then the assessments might have more impact in improving performance.

How committed are the coalition administration to this legislation?