The government last week announced a number of changes to planned legislation under the guise of freeing business from the “burden of red tape”.

These include repealing the regulations extending the right to request flexible working to parents of 17 year olds for all businesses (due to be introduced on 6 April); and not extending the right to request time off to train for firms with less than 250 people.

It also announced its intention to revise the draft regulations setting out the details of the specific duties underpinning the public sector equality duty for England, despite the fact that they were due to come into force on 5 April.

The new draft regulations remove the requirements on public bodies to publish details of the:

  • engagement they undertook when determining their policies
  • engagement they undertook when determining their equality objectives
  • equality analysis they undertook in reaching their policy decisions
  • information they considered when undertaking the analysis.

 

They will still have to:

  • publish equality objectives every four years
  • publish information annually to demonstrate their compliance with the general equality duty
  • in particular publish information relating to their employees (for bodies with 150 or more staff) and others affected by their policies and practices (such as service users).

 

The general duty will be implemented as planned on 5 April, but the specific duties (which help public bodies to meet their obligations under the general duty) will not now become law until July 2011.

In terms of the general duty, public bodies will still have to comply with the duty to have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunities and foster good relations. In a climate of cuts unions should therefore continue to request evidence that public bodies have complied with these duties when making decisions about spending cuts.

The government is asking for comments on their policy review paper entitled “The public sector Equality Duty: reducing bureaucracy” by 21 April. At least one question should be what is the real cost of dumbing down these specific duties?

The Equality and Human Rights Commission had published five sets of detailed guidance which will now have to be confined to the dustbin, presumably at some considerable cost to the public purse. Not to mention the cost to those public bodies who had prepared guidance in advance of the new duties coming into force - and all this in a climate of cuts.

To download the policy paper, go to: http://www.equalities.gov.uk

To download the government’s announcement, go to: http://www.equalities.gov.uk