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Equality Challenge Unit
The RRAA: The Broader Legislative Context
Equality Challenge Unit: June 2002
The Race Relations Amendment Act:
The Broader Legislative Context
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Equality Challenge Unit
The RRAA: The Broader Legislative Context
Contact:
Professor Joyce Hill
Director
Equality Challenge Unit
3rd floor
4 Tavistock Place
London WC1H 9RA
Email:
Tel: 020 7520 7061
Fax: 020 7520 7069
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Equality Challenge Unit
The RRAA: The Broader Legislative Context
Introduction
1. While no one would want to argue that the mainstreaming of equality and diversity should come about simply as a result of developing legislation, recent and impending developments in the law are valuable in supporting work in this area. In particular:
· The Race Relations Amendment Act (RRAA), in its Specific Duties for Higher Education, sets out principles and practices which are applicable across the full range of equality and diversity issues, not simply those concerned with minority racial groups.
· The RRAA’s new evidence-based approach, with requirements for systematic monitoring and impact assessments, regularly and publicly reported upon, presents a model on which other equality legislation will be fashioned.
· The rapid development of equality legislation presents HEIs with the opportunity to develop a holistic approach, drawing together a range of existing and impending legally-defined dimensions from the outset, so that, in implementing the RRAA, other areas are also embedded within the framework. This will reduce the need to ‘begin again’ when each piece of legislation is introduced. It will also be an effective means of achieving mainstreaming, since it will remove boundaries between equality areas, and will allow HEIs to respond to the complex reality that the various equality categories are not discrete; students and staff may well belong to several simultaneously.
· Whilst RRAA policies and action plans must be presented in such a way that their coherence is apparent and they can be readily identified for the purposes of communication, monitoring, reporting, review and development, the policies will strengthened if they are presented as being in synergy with other equality dimensions, with other employment legislation (e.g. on fixed-term staff), developments such as revised pay structures, the implementation of equal pay for work of equal value, and other developments that may be taking pace in the local context. In other words, the RRAA should not be treated as a closed area. Many developments currently taking place are highly relevant to the RRAA, even though they are categorised in other ways, and it will be detrimental if they do not inform and enliven the Race Equality Policies (and the Race Equality Scheme in the case of SHEFC).
RRAA principles
2. The Specific Duties relate directly to the implementation of the RRAA. But, as noted above, they define practices and procedures which are applicable across the board, in respect of employment (staff) and service delivery (students). In particular, they set out requirements for:
(a) fair, open and transparent procedures
(b) criterion-based practices
(c) evidence-based activity in all aspects of employment and service functions
(d) regular assessment of performance on the basis of systematic monitoring
(e) a developmental approach to equality and diversity on the basis of annual performance review
(f) improved communication with staff and students including regular and systematic consultation
(g) systematic training and staff development.
3. In this broad context, HEIs will need to consider how best to:
(h) provide appropriate leadership throughout the institution
(i) define responsibilities and timetables for reporting, review, and further action
(j) embed the monitoring requirements in Management Information Systems
(k) meet training needs
(l) carry forward the requirements for consultation.
The legislative context
The purpose of the this section is to remind colleagues of new and impending legislative requirements; it does not look back to existing laws that are already well established.
4. HEIs will be aware of the extension of the Disability Discrimination Act, which already covers members of staff and members of the public, to all students (DDA Part IV: SENDA). This is applicable from September 2002, with some slight leeway in the timetable in respect of certain practical adjustments.
5. The EU Fixed-Term Directive, which comes into force in the UK in October 2002, is highly relevant for equality and diversity, given the apparent clustering of women and those from ethnic minorities in such modes of employment and the risk of differential treatment in respect of terms and conditions of service, and in respect of integration and equal treatment in the context of daily activity.
6. The ECU sent out an I-Note on 4 February 2002 (I/02/11) commenting on the Government’s intentions with respect to the new EU Employment and Race Directives. This related to a public consultation then in train, the relevant publication being Towards Equality and Diversity: Implementing the Employment and Race Directives (publ. December 2001). This deals with non-discrimination at work with regard to:
(i) race
(ii) sexual orientation
(iii) religion
(iv) disability
(v) age
7. Conformity with the ECU Directives on race and disability will be achieved by minor adjustments to existing legislation.
8. New primary legislation will be required in respect of religion, sexual orientation and age.
9. The timescales are:
(i) race (adjustments only): July 2003
(ii) disability (adjustments only): October 2004
(iii) sexual orientation and religion: December 2003
(iv) age: December 2006
10. The ECU has been informed by the DTI that it is unlikely, at least in the first instance, that sexual orientation and religion will be subject to a systematic statistical monitoring procedure such as we find in the RRAA.
11. Notwithstanding the caveat in (10), which in any case must be taken as informal information at present since the law and relevant codes have not yet been framed, the Government’s clear intention is that, as far as possible, new equality legislation will be modelled on the RRAA.
12. The purpose of using the same underlying framework for all legislation of this kind is to promote the integration and mainstreaming of anti-discrimination.
13. To this end, the Government intends to bring the various equality commissions together as one organisation, whilst of course still retaining specialist areas within it.
14. In May 2002 the EU also issued a new Directive on gender. However, there are certain derogations allowed to Member States, and we therefore cannot advise on this until decisions are made at UK level on the principles of implementation. Only then will the Directive be formally incorporated into UK law.
15. In all of the legislative frameworks referred to, the definitions of staff and students are all-embracing: for staff there are no exclusions in respect of modes of contract, fractional employment, or staff categories; for ‘students’ one has to take account of undergraduate and postgraduate, full- and part-time, home and overseas, those on short courses, day schools, evening classes, taster courses, visitors from another institution, those undertaking only part of a course, applicants and potential applicants, those attending open days or interviews, receiving a prospectus, or targeted by recruitment and outreach work.
Further information
16. The ECU will keep HEIs informed of any further developments and will provide guidance in due course, in the form of written documentation and workshops/seminars.
17. The ECU is in close consultation with HESA to ensure that the developing frameworks for statistical reporting take account of anticipated legislation.
18. The ECU is in close consultation with all the relevant Equality Commissions, and with UCEA.
19. The ECU and HESDA are in consultation about the production of training materials and guidance on the business case for diversity as it applies to HEIs. We are also looking at ways of more systematically identifying the extensive specialist expertise available within the sector and making this known to colleagues.
20. SKILL, the National Bureau for Students with Disabilities, will shortly be issuing a series of very helpful and practical short guides to assist in the implementation of the DDA Part IV: www.skill.org.uk
21. The Disability Rights Commission, which is the primary source of information on the DDA Part IV, will also be offering a conciliation service: www.drc-gb.org
22. There is revised guidance from UCEA on fixed-term and part-time employees.
23. The DTI will shortly be issuing compliance guidance on the Fixed-Term Directive which, to judge from the draft, will be very clear and helpful.
24. The definitive Code and Guidance publications for the RRAA have now been issued by the CRE for England and Wales, and the consultation Code and Guidance have been issued for Scotland. HEIs in Scotland have the advantage of access to materials on the CRE website which were not available to those in England and Wales at this early stage in the development of their policies and action plans: www.cre.gov.uk