Did you miss the deadline to publish new equality objectives in April 2020?

With the Corona Virus lockdown in March, you might have missed the deadline to publish a fresh set of equality objectives by April 2020. If so, here is a quick reminder of the duties to support you to publish and meet your legal requirements.

Most education providers, including schools, colleges and universities, should have published equality objectives in April 2012 and then every four years. This means that a fresh set of equality objectives should have been published in April 2020.

What should objectives look like?

Equality objectives should be ambitious, explicit about the outcome that they are trying to achieve and clear about how success will be measured.

They should help providers to meet the Public Sector Equality Duty. Also known as the general duty, this means that providers must have due regard to:

1. Eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation
2. Advance equality of opportunity between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not
3. Foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not.

The regulations state that equality objectives must be ‘specific’. This means that providers should avoid objectives that are vague or simply overall aims. Each objective should be tied into one or more ‘arms’ of the general duty and explain which protected characteristic they are addressing. You should provide a short rationale for your choice of objectives.

The regulations also state that equality objectives must be ‘measurable’. This allows progress to be clearly measured.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) clarifies that equality objectives should be ‘outcome-focused’ rather than ‘process-focused’ or ‘output’ focussed. ‘Outputs’ describe what ‘gets done’, for example establishing a new HR database, or identifying the number of people completing a survey or attending a training event. ‘Outcomes’, however, are the changes that result for individuals or communities, for example a reduction in complaints of discrimination or animprovement in the success rates for a specific group of learners. Outcomes should result in an organisation genuinely ‘advancing’ or ‘moving forward’ in equality and diversity.

I published further information about setting fresh equality objectives in my February 2020 equality update, including

• The purpose of the annual equality report in showing progress in meeting equality objectives
• Free resources on my website giving more details of the duties

If you missed this update, you can access it here

Legal compliance and enforcement by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC)

The EHRC have a monitoring role and a legal enforcing compliance role to ensure providers meet their legal duties.

They have suspended this role for the remainder of 2020 in the light of the Corona Virus pandemic. So, providers have some breathing space. However, the EHRC have said

‘Where possible we encourage those bodies who can meet these obligations to do so. The requirements of the general duty remain in force and are critically important in ensuring that public bodies consider the needs of people with different protected characteristics as they respond to coronavirus.’

Further support

I frequently provide consultancy support to help support organisations to publish legally compliant equality objectives and annual equality reports.

I also provide training to senior leaders, EDI leads, governors and trustees on their legal duties.

Please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you are interested in finding out about this support or training. My contact details are below:

Email         Christine@christinerose.org

Mobile       07715 016955