Fircroft College » Specialist Support » Diversity Resources » Guides to Diversity and Equality

Diversity Training

What is the Diversity and Equalities Agenda?

First of all, it is useful to see where this new Agenda has come from.

The term “Diversity” is now very much associated with the New Labour era, and has been in common usage for about 10 years. The notion of “Equalities” is even newer, and nowadays seems to be used as shorthand for the legislation that has been passed since the year 2000.[1]

So what is this legislation?

In 2000, the Labour government introduced a new Race Relations Amendment Act. This passed into law the main recommendations of Judge Macpherson’s Enquiry into the death of Stephen Lawrence, the young Black man who was murdered by racists in Eltham, London, in 1993. To this day, no one has been convicted of Stephen Lawrence’s murder.

In his Report, Judge Macpherson accused the Metropolitan Police of Institutional Racism in the way it conducted the investigation into Stephen Lawrence’s murder. In other words, although there was no evidence of ‘direct discrimination’ by individual officers during the murder enquiry, Macpherson found widespread evidence that

“stereotyping… mistaken beliefs… patronising behaviour... ignorance of cultural traditions… (and) uncritical self-understanding”

characterised the Metropolitan Police’s approach to their work, and undermined the murder investigation.

Therefore in his Report’s recommendations, Macpherson proposed that a new duty be imposed upon all public bodies to promote race equality.

In doing so, Macpherson was saying that existing legislation that outlawed racial discrimination (most notably the 1976 Race Relations Act) was insufficient to ensure that minority ethnic groups were treated justly (or “equally”) by organisations such as the police or local councils which were predominantly “White” institutions. [2]

How does the Public Duty to Promote Race Equality work?

Firstly, it needs to be said that this type of legislation has no equivalent in any other country [3] So we are dealing with a completely new form of legislation and public policy. (We will see how this form of legislation has been extended to other policy areas shortly)

In order to carry out their general duty to promote equality of opportunity in matters of race, public bodies such as Councils and Health Authorities, are legally obliged to publish a Race Equality Scheme. This Race Equality Scheme (RES) is specific to that organisation, and states how it will carry out its public duty to promote equality of opportunity in matters of race. The RES is therefore a strategy, together with a realistic, timetabled Action Plan.

But how does the Duty to “promote equality of opportunity in matters of race” impact upon managers of services?

Every Race Equality Scheme should set out details of how you will train your staff to carry out the duty to promote equality of opportunity, as well as how you will make them aware of the fact that it is illegal to discriminate in providing employment and services.

So, at the very least, all your staff should understand that in matters of race (and as we shall see, since 2007, also in matters of gender and disability) they have a duty to promote equality of opportunity. This means that they will need to understand how this translates into day-to-day work. It is your duty as a manager to ensure that they know this!

Secondly, apart from training your staff, you are responsible for monitoring your policies and procedures for any “adverse impact upon promoting race equality”.

What does this mean?

It means you have to check whether your policies and procedures are ‘fair’ – that is, that they do not (unintentionally or otherwise) discriminate against any ethnic group. For instance, a policy which is only delivered to people who live in permanent accommodation (especially if you ask for a utility bill to prove this) would be discriminatory towards Irish Travellers and Gypsies (they are both identified as ‘racial groups’ by the Race Relations Acts) because they may not necessarily have a permanent place of abode.

So how do I go about monitoring for “adverse impact”?

Step forward the dreaded Equalities Impact Assessment forms!

Why are they called Equalities Impact Assessment Forms – I thought it was only in issues of race that we had to monitor?

As pointed out above, the particular format of the Race Relations Amendment Act has now been extended to cover gender and disability. This is one reason why we now refer to the Equalities agenda, and not just the Race Relations Equality agenda.

The 2005 Disability Discrimination Act imposed the duty to promote equality of opportunity in terms of disability upon public organisations.[4] Then the Equality Act 2006 extended the duty to promote equality of opportunity to gender.[5]

So now we have to carry out Equality Impact Assessments on Race, Disability and Gender?

Yes! But here come more complications. Many public organisations are now moving to carry out impact assessments on all six strands of the Diversity agenda!

Hang on! I can see now that Race, Disability and Gender are part of the “Diversity Agenda”. What are the other 3 strands?

The other three strands are Sexual Orientation, Age, and Religious Belief.

Why?

Because in the last five years, new laws have been passed outlawing discrimination on the basis of Sexual Orientation, Age, and Religious Belief.

So they are the same as Race, Disability and Gender?

No! There is no public duty to promote equality of opportunity in respect of Sexual Orientation, Age, or Religious Belief. But these new laws do outlaw discrimination in terms of employment and training in all three areas.[6] Discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and religious belief in the provision of services is also illegal. But (bizarrely!) it is not illegal to discriminate on the basis of age in providing a service!

Why is that?

Probably because so many services do discriminate on the basis of age, especially the NHS!

Can we go back to the first question? Can you summarise what is now meant by the Diversity and Equalities Agenda?

In terms of the current meaning of Diversity, we refer to the six strands of:

race
disability
gender
sexual orientation
age
religious belief

But the term can also embrace other areas. For instance, Herefordshire County Council also monitors polices and procedures on the basis of ‘rurality’ and ‘income’. So Herefordshire County Council looks to see if new policies might adversely impact upon people because they live out ‘in the sticks’, where there is often limited access to transport and there are few centres of population where a service can be located. Equally, they look to see if new policies might discriminate against those on low income, who may not be able to afford to access the services in the first place. So, they actually have 8 strands of Diversity in their Equality Impact Assessments.

Surely rurality and income are vital, and just as important as the six ‘conventional’ strands?

Quite correct. In fact, social class is still the most accurate predictor of disadvantage and ‘inequality’ in the UK. And even in aspects of race, gender and disability, the influence of social class is enormous.

For instance, among Social Class 1 - the most affluent social class - only 6% of women are reported as ‘disabled’. Yet among the poorest (Social Class 5) the level of disability is 24%! [7] The same is true of mental health. Only 8% of women in Social Class 1 are at risk of developing a mental illness. The risk for women in Social Class 5 is 26%.[8] Of course, the reality of disability is the same, whether you are rich or poor, and the experience of discrimination may also be the same. But failure to recognise the connection between social class and other aspects of disadvantage is a serious weakness in the current agenda.[9]

So to sum up a manager’s responsibility in the Diversity and Equalities agenda...

a) Understand the law, and how it relates to your service, both in terms of employment and service provision. In particular, understand the difference between the positive duty to promote equality of opportunity in matters of race, disability and gender, and the law which outlaws discrimination in all of the six strands.

b) Check that you are aware of the main points of your own Race Equality Scheme, the Disability Equality Scheme, and the Gender Equality Scheme. You may have specific responsibilities, or your department may have targets which are set out in those Schemes.

c) Ensure that your staff have been trained to recognise the key issues as they relate to YOUR service area in all six strands. Check that your staff know what the law is, and the meaning of the positive duty to promote equality.

d) You have a legal duty to carry out proper Equality Impact Assessments in race, disability and gender. You may also be moving to a 6 strand model which includes sexual orientation, age and religious belief. The purpose of the Equality Impact Assessments is to help you to design a service which is more attuned to the actual Diversity of your own community. Equality Impact Assessments should help you to explore whether these differences might prevent some people from accessing your service as it is currently delivered.[10] They should help you to explore whether you need to change the way you deliver your services to meet the real and often complex needs of people in our local communities.

e) And finally, don’t be afraid to say you don’t know or don’t understand the Diversity and Equalities Agenda. None of us do! Understanding Diversity and its implications is a life-long task, not least because our society, and our values, are rapidly changing.

At the end of the day, the Diversity and Equalities Agenda should be about delivering services that meets the needs of the real people in our communities. Unfortunately, at times, the process is cumbersome and bureaucratic. But the needs of a young person with a Learning Disability living in Sparkbrook are very different from those of a frail elderly person living in a tied-cottage in rural Herefordshire. So bear in mind, when designing your services – one size does not fit all!

[1] The term “Equalities” should not be confused with the actual meaning of the word “equality” – to make equal - in the sense of creating an equal society, as the Labour Party envisaged when it was founded.

On the contrary, the new “Equalities” agenda is more about promoting greater Equality of Opportunity in an era of global capitalism.

[2] In other words, he suggested that public institutions have a ‘culture’ which has been created by the set of views and attitudes of those who ‘control’ them.

[3] In the USA for instance, they have gone down the Affirmative Action route, which is a form of positive discrimination. Broadly speaking however, positive discrimination is illegal in the UK.

[4] All public bodies had to have a Disability Equality Scheme in place by December 2006.

[5] All public bodies had to put a Gender Equality Scheme in place by April 2007.

[6] So whereas there was already legislation outlawing discrimination on the basis of race, disability and gender before the public duty to “promote equality of opportunity” was imposed, in the case of religion, age and sexual orientation, discrimination was not illegal until this new round of legislation between 2003 and 2006.

[7] National Survey 2001

[8] National Survey 2007

[9] This is a personal view, but one shared by many others. I feel this is particularly the case in rural areas, where the poor live side-by-side with the well-off in our towns and villages. If we are looking at the key issues which predict poverty in rural areas we would look at income, disability and age, before some of the other Diversity issues. Sociologically speaking, the most disadvantaged in rural areas are older white people living in isolation, and younger disabled white people with few qualifications. In contrast, in urban areas, poverty is linked much more closely to ethnicity.

[10] For instance, people with Learning Disabilities are one of the most isolated and disadvantaged groups in the UK. Do you provide information about your services in an ‘easy access’ format for people who have Learning Disabilities? As an example of good practice, look at the foot of Somerset Council’s Home Page at www.somerset.gov.uk.