Legislation in Support of Equality and Diversity: A Critical Study

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Legislation in Support of Equality and
Diversity
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Contents
INTRODUCTION..............................................................................................................2
TASK 1 & 2...................................................................................................................... 3
RESEARCH THE KEY DEFINITIONS AND CHARACTERISTICS OF
DISCRIMINATORY BEHAVIOUR................................................................................3
CONCLUSION............................................................................................................... 10
REFERENCES...............................................................................................................11
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INTRODUCTION
This report is going to present a critical study of different acts and human rights. The
starting sections explain the meaning of Equality and Diversity and also what Equality
and Diversity mean in the UK specifically. The report will present a keen and elegant
explanation of the services and the acts of the service that the Parliament of the UK
government has introduced for the public, private and voluntary sectors of the company.
The act of the company has proven to be a residential and effective manner. The latter
sections define the different legislation and regulations that the Parliament of UK has
introduced for the developing Equality and Diversity in the society and eradicating the
discrimination from the nation.
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TASK 1 & 2
RESEARCH THE KEY DEFINITIONS AND CHARACTERISTICS OF
DISCRIMINATORY BEHAVIOUR
EQUALITY AND DIVERSITY
Equality and Diversity is the term used in the UK which defined equality, diversity and
human rights as the core values for the society and the culture. These values promote
equality for getting opportunities so that every individual can show its potential and
being free from any kind of discrimination and prejudice. In the UK these values help in
public services by increasing the overall innovation level and the performance of the
individual. Here the equality, by all means, is that every individual should get equal
opportunity regardless of its age, sex, color, etc. On the other hand, the diversity points
to the fact that people should appreciate the diversity of the people in the society
(Richardson and Monro, 2012).
Definition
The simplest definition for “Equality and Diversity” is appreciating the differences among
the people and treating all of them equally.
 Equality – equality means providing equal rights and opportunities to everyone
(Thompson, 2016).
 Diversity – Diversity means accepting the differences among the people and not
judging them on the basis of their cast, creed, region, language, etc. (Thompson,
2016).
Concepts
The concept of Equality and Diversity is "Equal Opportunities". In the UK this is a Legal
Provision for protecting the nation's culture from discrimination. This provision creates
an environment in the society that all the individuals must be treated the same and
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provided the same opportunities with the appreciation of their faults, language, sex,
color, etc. This is done by setting values like "It is normal to have diversity in the people"
and "Every diverse individual should be treated the same" among the people of the UK.
This develops metrics among the people which do not measures them on the basis of
their capabilities but rather than on their intents (Özbilgin and Tatli, 2011).
Legislation
The legislation is a term which refers to the Laws which are made by the government
collectively. For Equality and Diversity the government has introduced the Equality Act
2010 which defines the laws for the work environment i, e. the employer and the
employee should be taking consistent necessary actions to maintain a fair environment
(Tatli, 2011). The key legislation guidelines summarize to the following point:
 Employer Adjustments – The employer must make or undertake reasonable
adjustments for any employee who is somehow disabled (not only physically
disability) and if:
o He/she asks for little reasonable changes.
o The employer is known to the disability of the employee or job applicant.
o Employee-facing difficulty in the work environment.
o Employee’s work performance is dependent on the disability.
The employer should take the “Positive Actions” defined in the Legislations (Act,
2010).
 Equal Duty – The employers must implement an equality duty for the
employees, working in the public, private or voluntary sector. This is a must in
order to prevent any discrimination among the employees, implementing equal
opportunities, promote equality and maintaining good relationship among the
individual of protected characteristics.
 Sex Equality / Equal Pay – The individuals must get equal benefits and
opportunities within the work environment regardless of their gender. In other
terms, if the individuals of different genders are providing the same work then
there should be equal pay for them. In the Equality Act, this is termed as "No less
favorable pay" (Act, 2010).
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 Health Assistance – If an employer needs to ask any health-related question
from the employee or the job candidate then he/she can only do so to identify
that whether the applicant can carry out the tasks required for the tasks, or to
make sure that the individual has a disability for performing the necessary tasks
of the role, or to monitor the employees performance to identify that they are
disabled or not, or to identify the right “Positive Action” need to be taken (Act,
2010).
ACTS IMPLEMENTED FOR SUPPORTING EQUALITY AND DIVERSITY
Following are the acts that are implemented for supporting equality and diversity in the
UK:
Equality Act 2010 (Lockwood et al., 2012)
It is the most powerful act developed Equality and Diversity in the UK and helped in
eradicating discrimination. This act updated numerous prior acts like the Sex
Discrimination Act 2015, the Equal Pay Act 1970, etc. The Act protects the individuals in
the UK from victimization or harassment in employment, discrimination on the basis of
the 9 protected characteristics. These characteristics are:
 Age
 Disability
 Gender Reassignment
 Marriage and Civil Partnership
 Pregnancy and Maternity
 Race
 Religion or Belief
 Sex
 Sexual Orientation
In case of the identification of any disability, the employers and the companies have to
make legitimate adjustments to maintain equality. These adjustments are termed as the
“general duties to promote equality”. All such cases and the acts are maintained by
Equality and Human Rights Commission. The main aim of this commission is to reduce
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inequality, strengthen good relations among the people and protect and promote human
rights and also to eradicate discrimination. EHRC has owned the duties for acting
against the disadvantage and prejudice by promoting human rights.
FAIR TREATMENT LEGISLATIONS AND REGULATIONS
The various acts implement in the fair treatment and employment equality are:
Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 (Hepple, 2010)
This was introduced on 1 Oct 2016. These regulation guidelines are the part of the
secondary regulations which prevents the employers and the companies to
unreasonably discriminate the employees on the basis of their age. Now the
Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 is a part of the Equality Act 2010. This
legislation covers all the aspects and prevents discrimination on Recruitment, T&C of
the employment, promotions, transfer, dismissals, and training on the basis of age. The
act covers the following key points:
 The wages should be decided on the basis of the working length and others, not
on age.
 The wages should be paid in relation to the National Minimum Wage Pay related
to the National Minimum Wage.
 There should be life assurance.
 There should be occupational pension systems.
 Following the acts under the statutory authority.
 The retirements should not be discriminated and a fixed age should be decided.
 There should be enhanced redundancy.
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Sex Discrimination Acts and Regulation
The Sex Discrimination act 1975 was an act defined by the Parliament of UK for
protecting the men and women from discrimination. The Act protects the discrimination
of me and women in areas like employment, training, education, harassment, goods,
and services, etc. (Talbot, 2017). The key points of this act were concerned with men
and women only. A later act is known as the Gender Recognition Act 2004 and
Employment Equality (Sex Discrimination) Regulations 2005 later included the
transsexual people. The key points of Employment Equality (Sex Discrimination)
Regulations 2005 (Sargeant, 2016). The public services and the private sectors can
specifically run freely from discrimination of any kind of gender.
The act was started by services of EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission)
which aims to protect people from the harassment of sex at their workplaces. The key
objectives of this act are:
 Protection from discrimination on the ground to their marital status.
 Protection of discrimination on gender transition.
 Equal pay for all the sexes.
 There should be pension equality for all genders.
 Maternal and paternal considerations and leaves.
There is another advisory which has provided facilities for all genders to fight back the
gender discrimination. This advisory is ACAS (Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration
Service). The advice is provided by the following factors:
 Telecommunication helplines for doubts and quarries.
 Online e-learning courses provided by ACAS.
 Guidance for sex discrimination (Sargeant, 2016).
 Workspace models for maintaining healthy employee and employer relationships.
 Pieces of training for improving the mental health of the workers
The legitimate considerations in this act are made where there is a genuine need for any
specific gender for performing the work or the role.
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Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 (Kapoor, 2013)
The Race Relation act is a modified form of an act of Race Relation Act 1976. This act
defines definitions for public authorities that include operations which are public and are
performed by private firms. This act aims to prevent the discrimination of the individuals
on the basis of their racial factors i.e. skin color, ethnic origin, and racial, and to promote
good relationships among the people of different racial grounds. The key objectives of
this act are:
 Each organization must have maintained a publicly stated policy on race equality.
 There should be no wage discrimination on the basis of racial grounds.
 The act defines public authority widely in order to carry to the race discrimination
more specifically outlawing the Race Relations Act 1976.
Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003 (Hepple, 2014)
This act was introduced on 2 December 2003. This act introduced that there should be
no discrimination on the basis of the religion or beliefs of the individual in any sector.
The act includes vocational training, promotions, transfers, dismissals, terms and
conditions, and recruitments. It ensures that there will be the prevention of
discrimination on the basis of similar or dissimilar beliefs and religions of an individual.
The key conclusion driven from the study of the act is:
 There should be protected from direct and indirect discrimination among the
employees on the basis of their beliefs and religions.
 Prevention of the harassment of the individual.
 Prevention of victimization of any worker on the ground of their emotional
qualities and services.
 Discrimination and the harassment of someone after the end of the terms among
them are prevented.
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Human Rights Act of 1998
The Parliament of the UK government has also passed another act in 1998 known as
the Human Rights Act 1998. According to this act, a person is free to make his/her
rights in public organizations based on the legislation of the UK government along with
the governmental policies and the local councils. Human Rights Act has provided the
individuals at the public organizations to improve the public services (Bullock and
Johnson, 2011).
There is an Advisory line which provides advice to the employees and the individuals at
the public services and aware them about the Human Rights Act 1998. The advisory is
called Liberty Human Right and help them to resolves related to such issues (Harris et
al., 2014).
Another such group is RADAR which provides advisory on the women rights specifically
regarding Disability and Rehabilitation. The firm is monitoring violation of the services
and the laws of the Human Rights Act. The RADAR is also helping the individuals to
fight back issues related to women rights. The RADAR has stated that everyone should
be treated equally with respect, dignity, and fairness.
Because employees are covered by the General Employment Act, these rights help
them in their work operations. Public services or labor courts have passed the law to
make human rights decisions in the workplace (De Ruiter, 2013).
RADAR has shifted their attention on the rights which are defined by HRA for the
individuals at public services, they are:
 Right to life.
 Discrimination prohibition
 Right to Personal security and liberty.
 Rights to take part in government
 Right to the standard of living.
 Right to peaceful assembly & association
 Right to freedom of torture (Bullock and Johnson, 2011)
 Right to freedom of expression or opinion
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CONCLUSION
The report was successful in presenting the study on the Equality and the Diversity of
the UK. The UK Parliament has defined the different laws that have changed the values
and the metrics of the people on which they evaluate different individuals and helped
them to develop a quality and free lifestyle regardless of any diversity. The law has
taught the individuals in the private sectors that how they can appreciate different
diversities of the individuals and eradicate the discrimination.
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REFERENCES
 Act, E., 2010. c. 15. London: The Stationery Office.
 Bullock, K. and Johnson, P., 2011. The impact of the Human Rights Act 1998 on
policing in England and Wales. The British Journal of Criminology, 52(3), pp.630-
650.
 De Ruiter, R., 2013. Under the radar? National parliaments and the ordinary
legislative procedure in the European Union. Journal of European Public Policy,
20(8), pp.1196-1212.
 Harris, D.J., O'Boyle, M., Bates, E. and Buckley, C., 2014. Harris, O'Boyle &
Warbrick: Law of the European convention on human rights. Oxford University
Press, USA.
 Hepple, B., 2010. The new single equality act in Britain. The Equal Rights
Review, 5, pp.11-24.
 Hepple, B., 2014. Equality: The legal framework. Bloomsbury Publishing.
 Kapoor, N., 2013. The advancement of racial neoliberalism in Britain. Ethnic and
Racial Studies, 36(6), pp.1028-1046.
 Lockwood, G., Henderson, C. and Thornicroft, G., 2012. The Equality Act 2010
and mental health. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 200(3), pp.182-183.
 Özbilgin, M. and Tatli, A., 2011. Mapping out the field of equality and diversity:
Rise of individualism and voluntarism. human relations, 64(9), pp.1229-1253.
 Richardson, D. and Monro, S., 2012. Sexuality, equality and diversity. Macmillan
International Higher Education.
 Sargeant, M., 2016. Age discrimination in employment. Routledge.
 Talbot, M., 2017. A gendered physical education: equality and sexism. In
Equality, Education, and Physical Education (pp. 74-89). Routledge.
 Tatli, A., 2011. A multi‐layered exploration of the diversity management field:
diversity discourses, practices and practitioners in the UK. British Journal of
Management, 22(2), pp.238-253.
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