Government’s new equality duty will end an era of top-down commands, restrictive targets and red tape, says Jonathan Rees.

Equality of opportunity is fundamental to building a strong economy and a fair society. But in the past, the need to promote equality of opportunity has often been misunderstood – associated with prescriptive form-filling and political correctness, and with treating people as categories and not as individuals. The government’s equality strategy set out a new approach, moving government interventions away from top-down, central bureaucracy and into the roles of catalysts and advocates of change.

Central to this shift is the reshaping of the public sector equality duty, which came into force in April this year, and the supporting regulations (known as the specific duties) which came into force in September. The new equality duty replaces the old race, gender and disability equality duties with a single, streamlined duty, which also covers age, sexual orientation, religion or belief, and transgender status, while the new specific duties strip away unnecessary bureaucracy, saving public bodies time and money.

The reshaped equality duty requires all public bodies to consider how they can eliminate unlawful discrimination, advance equality of opportunity, and foster good relations between people with different characteristics.

All civil servants should be aware of this requirement. It is not a duty to achieve any particular outcome, but a requirement to think about how their actions affect people.

The new specific duties will promote transparency and accountability by requiring public bodies to publish information to show they have done this (at least annually), and to set themselves relevant, specific equality objectives (at least every four years).

In the past, a particular problem was that the old equality duties demanded lengthy equality impact assessments – often completed after key decisions had been taken, and therefore of no practical purpose. There is no longer a need to produce such documents.

Considering equality should not be an add-on, done after decisions are taken; nor does it require the production of a particular document. Considering the needs of different people is integral to good policy-making, delivering good services and making best use of our workforces. Considering equality should form part of the decision-making process itself. Keeping a simple record – which could simply be the minutes of a meeting where it was discussed, or the relevant sections of the key policy paper – is sufficient.

The government has made clear that the equality duty does not mean treating everyone the same. It means responding in a proportionate way to people’s differing needs. Likewise, the equality duty should not get in the way of taking and implementing difficult decisions. On the contrary, it should inform and assist good decision-making, by promoting consideration of how different people will be affected by those decisions, and doing so early on in the process.

The new requirements to publish data and set equality objectives will improve transparency about a department’s record on equality and make them more accountable to their users – a real shift from bureaucracy and process to public accountability and change. Most public bodies, such as government departments, will have to start publishing equality information by 31 January 2012, and agree and publish their equality objectives by 31 March 2012.

So, this is a new era for equality – and it is vital that civil servants are aware of the new duty, how to apply it, and how it is different from what went before. It is crucial for a strong economy and a fair society that we get it right.

For more information go to: www.homeoffice.gov.uk/equalities/equality-act.

Jonathan Rees is director general of the Government Equalities Office.

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Written by Jonathan Rees