The equality bill

Very soon the public sector will have another part of the equality bill that the Government will be passing which they will have to work too as part of the equality and diversity agenda. This work will require an enormous amount of knowledge for the equality leads and the staff who are required to understand how to complete equality impact assessment forms (EIA or EQIA).

The new characteristic which needs to be taken into account is the socio economic one; this is where people's backgrounds etc need to be taken into account. Most of us understand the characteristics that are currently within the equality framework; race, disability, age, religion and belief, gender and sexual orientation, (and trans) and these have to be taken into account for the equality impact assessment (EIA, EQIA). However this is a whole different ball game and one which will affect many people's lives.

The questions I want to ask is are the public sector ready for this? More to the point how are they going to get ready? Where will they get the information they need to have to carry out the EIA form and complete it properly and accurately? Well my guess is that it will fall to the equality lead to educate all the relevant staff and this will be a task which will be very difficult. The equality agenda is becoming very complex and it does require an equality lead that can think differently and manage all this information for the EIA forms to be meaningful. This person will be a big asset to any organisation and good equality leads will become like gold dust!

The equality lead MUST also ensure that the CEO of the organisation understands the importance of this work and shows commitment to it and to them. This can be done by supporting them within the organisation to other managers etc and making sure the EIA is high on the agenda and in the organisation's objectives.

There is no doubt in my mind that this work is very important and in the current climate this new characteristic needs to be taken into account even more. This work will not go away in fact in time there will be more and more even with a change of Government.