The UK Government abandons its commitment to delivering race equality

The UK Coalition Government has announced a national consultation on changes to existing public sector equality duties. These requirements legally compel public bodies to have “ due regard” to eliminate discrimination and “ foster good relations” between different groups. The national consultation effort on these proposed changes will be undertaken from now until November.

Currently, existing legislation requires public bodies to set out their plans to reduce discrimination for protected groups through the publication of Race Equality schemes and respond to any national equality priorities as set out by the Ministers.

Public sector positive equality duties fundamentally originated in the Macpherson Inquiry into the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence. This inquiry highlighted the reality of institutional racism, which it defined as,

‚ÄòThe collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture, or ethnic origin. It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behavior which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people‚Äô.

The inquiry registered an acknowledgement, by police, government and wider society, of the reality of institutional racism. It raised the level of public awareness as to the pernicious nature of racism and the damage that flowed from it. It signaled a renewed determination to eradicate racism, based on a more informed understanding. It represented a fundamental step forward in official understanding of the operation of discriminatory processes ‚Äì in this case, of racism.

The current proposals by Government are a retrogressive step backwards on the issue of equality generally and represent a significant diminution of the Governments commitment to race equality.

The UK Human Rights Blog  reports that the Coalition Government is seeking to dilute the current public sector duties to promote equality in a determined effort to weaken the effect of the Equality Act 2010.

The Coalition Government’s promotes the new consultation by declaring that “new approach” will take into account “the Government’s clear aim of replacing top-down interventions from the centre with local democratic accountability driven by transparency and decentralisation” leaving public bodies “free from unnecessary red tape”.

In reality this will mean that public sector bodies will not be required to publish specific race equality objectives neither will Government now establish national race equality frameworks or announce race specific targets such as ethnic employment targets for public sector organisations such as the police service, prison service or education authorities.

In terms of the provision of services Government will no longer establish employment targets aimed at reducing the over representation of black people in stop and search statistics or reducing race disproportionality within the criminal justice system or mental health services in general.

The Governments current proposals fly in the face of clear evidence that public sector duties have made a real contribution to advancing equality.

In research reported published by the now defunct CRE in 2003 entitled Towards Racial Equality: An evaluation of the public duty to promote race equality and good relations in England and Wales, CRE, July 2003, covering 3,300 public authorities showed that 70 per cent of educational institutions that responded, 89 per cent of central government and 83 per cent of higher education bodies believed that the Race Duty had produced positive benefits; 74 per cent had identified service user satisfaction outcomes.

The Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) followed this up and carried out a number of case studies at the beginning of 2006 to ascertain progress amongst public authority bodies and other bodies that are subject to specific duties within the Race Equality Duty. 

Overall, the research demonstrated that public sector employment equality policies were shown to have resulted in both a more representative workforce reflecting the surrounding community and enhanced the quality and cultural appropriateness of services provided.

For example, Kent Police had established public consultation groups to consult on service delivery and provide transparency, increased active representation at community events, re-launched the Kent Police Standard, undertook research into areas of public concern such as apparent disproportionate stop/searches, increased ethnic monitoring to include Irish Gypsies and Travellers, and in January 2007 adopted the Equality Standard for Local Government (ESLG).

A separate CRE survey in 2003, covering 3,300 public authorities, showed that 70 per cent of educational institutions that responded, 89 per cent of central government and 83 per cent of higher education bodies believed that the Race Duty had produced positive benefits; 74 per cent had identified service user satisfaction outcomes.

The duty to promote race equality, and in turn the duties to promote disability and gender equality, built on this recognition of institutional discrimination by developing proactive, positive equality duties on public authorities. The way in which these duties require consideration to be given to promoting equality in all areas of work and provide for specific steps, such as consultation, action plans and public accountability, led to a sea-change in public sector awareness of discriminatory processes, and in practices and outcomes to help secure greater equality.

These new proposals are a disaster for black communities who lobbied long and hard for tougher equality legislation in response to growing racial inequalities in employment and service provision. It effectively signals the death knell to one important advance introduced as a consequence of the inquiry into the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence. Whilst there are undoubtedly improvements that if introduced could improve the effectiveness of equality legislation any changes to equality structures must increase not diminish their effectiveness to tackle discrimination.

These proposals would weaken the mainstreaming of the duties into the policy development and practice of public authorities, encouraging them to cherry-pick ‘priorities’ to which to apply equality duties. Unlike the duty to consider equality in all their work, this ability to select priorities would inevitably encourage subjectivity and be vulnerable to changes in the political climate and popularity or unpopularity of particular issues.

Instead public authorities will publish a range of equality data relating both to their workforces and to the services they provide guided by the principles set out by the new Public Sector Transparency Board. This new board has been set up to persuade public authorities to open up their data to public integration. This coincides with government’s commitment in its Program for Governmentto introduce a “Right to Data”.

This will result in a huge variation in the quality of race equalities policies across the country. Black and ethnic minority communities in areas like London, Manchester, Birmingham, Northern Ireland and Wales. With huge cuts to the Black voluntary sector, local or national organisations do not have the capacity or resources to effectively hold to account a huge range of public sector organisations in relation to their equality performance.

This will result in a national lottery in relation to the protection from racism with the rights of deprived black and ethnic minorities in the UK being determined not by national political leadership or but by their own weak ability to hold the public sector to account.

Protection from race discrimination is a fundamental human right.  Governments have a direct responsibility to ensure that individuals are protected from discrimination. Black and ethnic minorities even where they are able to detect discrimination in employment or provision of services will be unable effectively challenge discriminatory practice.

Our communities are already suffering enormously as a consequence living on some of the most deprived areas of the UK in social and economic environments that are characterised by a voluntary sector that is poorly funded, fragile and located in communities in weak civic structures. In the context of savage cuts to public services black and ethnic communities already likely to suffer disproportionate effects resulting in higher unemployment and increased poverty. In addition their ability to challenge racism in the provision of public services is being fatally and fundamentally undermined.

Despite these serious concerns Government is intent on weakening the existing duties and the result will be to undermine real potential for improved equality outcomes.

The Equality Office is undertaking a public consultation

http://www.equalities.gov.uk/news/specific_duties_consultation.aspx

Responses should be sent by email to:

specificduties@geo.gsi.gov.uk

or by post to:

Specific Duties Consultation Responses

Government Equalities Office

Zone J10, 9th Floor

Eland HouseBressenden PlaceLondon SW1E 5DU