The Equality Act 2010 Unleashed!

The Equality Act 2010 received Royal Assent on the 8th of April 2010 and is geared to be the most radical Equality Law ever enacted in the United Kingdom- for the simple fact of integrating key discrimination laws/instruments into one single document- These being:

a. The Equal Pay Act 1970;

b. The Sex Discrimination Acts of 1975 and 1986;

c. The Race Relations Act of 1976;

d. The Disability Discrimination Act 1995;

e. The Equality Act 2006;

f. Employment Equality (Religion or belief) Regulations 2003;

g. Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003;

h. Occupational Pensions Schemes (Equal Treatment Amendment Regulations) 2005;

i. Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 (aside from Schedules 6 and 8);

j. The Sex Discrimination (Amendment of Legislation) Regulations 2008.

The Equality Act also integrated some of the provisions of a number of Statutes and Regulations complementary to those listed above, such as:

a. The Local Government Act 1988;

b. The Employment Act 1989;

c. The Social Security Act 1989;

d. The Pensions Act 1995; e.

The Greater London Authority Act 1999;

f. Civil Partnership Act 2004;

g. Equality Act 2006; h. Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004.

The key aims of the Act

a. Harmonisation of the definitions of rights, discrimination and exceptions applying to them and by extension;

b. Simplification of the principles applying thereto;

c. Broadening the categories of protected persons and strengthening protection for them

All these being under the broad theme of promoting socio-economic equality

Key changes introduced by the Act

a. The Public sector Equality duty- simply put- Public authorities now have an overriding general duty to promote socio-economic equality in strategic decision-making. Following from this, they were given responsibilities beyond the existing protected categorisations of promotion of racial, sexual and disability equality to further include age, sexual orientation, religion and gender reassignment. Public authorities are required to set their own equality targets/objectives. This duty being set to come into force in April 2011;

b. The creation of clear categories of protected characteristics, namely: i. Age; ii. Disability; iii. Gender reassignment; iv. Marriage and civil partnership; v. Pregnancy and maternity; vi. Race; vii. Religion or belief; viii. Sex; and; ix. Sexual orientation;

c. Following from the above- the elevation of Age Discrimination protection from secondary to primary legislation;

d. The inclusion of protection from discrimination in the provision of services (also covering goods) which is of particular important for its extension to the age category;

e. Allowing a person with two protected characteristics, the opportunity to make a dual claim under both categories;

f. Providing employment Tribunals the power to recommend to a respondent who has lost a discrimination steps geared towards remedying matters for the benefit of its workforce at large;

g. The amendment –modernisation- of Family property law, essentially abolishing the duty of a man to maintain his wife, the abolition of the presumption of advancement. Also the amendment of Married Women’s property Act 1964, re-wording the presumption of equal ownership of property derived from housekeeping allowance from the ” husband and wife” assumption to a more broad-based definition “either or them”- providing the amendment to be cited now as the Matrimonial Property Act 1964 . Following from this, the Civil Partnership Act 2004 was also amended to extend the equal shares presumption for property derived from housekeeping allowance contained in the Matrimonial Property Act 1964 to Civil Partnerships;

h. Reinforcement of provision for equal pay between men and women and a disclosure requirement for employers to reinforce this provision

The Act and older persons

The act impacts on older persons as follows by:

a. Full statutory protection from age discrimination beyond the work-place

b. Providing In particular- protection from discrimination in the provision of goods and services;

c. Allowing older person subject to any of the other protected characteristics, the opportunity to claim for discrimination on both grounds;

d. Protecting carers of older persons from discrimination;

The act however did not deal with the lingering question of change to/or abolition of the Default Retirement Age.

Territorial Coverage

The act applies to England and Wales, as well as Scotland – with the exception of provisions relating to Improvement of dwelling houses (S.190) and Family property (Part 15). A few of the provisions apply to Northern Ireland.

Implementation and other matters

The act, whilst now an existing law was meant to have active force from October 2010, however as at the time of writing this, the October date is now subject to question, having been removed from the Government’s website, an announcement on this is awaited- possibly alongside or subsequent to the June 22 2010, emergency budget.

In addition to the above, its important to note that the Act whilst a comprehensive legislative document, will require a substantial amount of subsidiary legislation- by way of regulations- to give effect to its provisions, many of which may affect the character of the provisions substantially, hence it is clear that the Act is still work in progress, however its undeniable that the act in itself has introduced several long awaited changes and we anxiously await the regulations which it is hoped shall give greater ambit to its provisions.