Equality, Diversity, and Fair Treatment in UK Public Sector: A Report

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EQUALITY, DIVERSITY AND FAIR
TREATMENT
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................................................3
P3..........................................................................................................................................................4
P4..........................................................................................................................................................7
M1.......................................................................................................................................................10
D1........................................................................................................................................................12
CONCLUSION.......................................................................................................................................15
REFERENCES........................................................................................................................................16
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INTRODUCTION
This assignment is prepared to have an understanding of the legislative system of the
UK and its implication on the public sector organization of the UK. In this assignment
first part deals with the investigation of various laws of the land to ensure the equality
of the opportunity, growth and development in the public sector or civil services and
also to assess the degree of the fair treatment in the civil services. In the next part, it
covers the evaluation of the role of advisory services in the civil service employment,
and the reasons for unconscious discrimination in the public organization and the
remedies to eradicate them.
Public sector organization can be defined as the organization that plan, prepares and
deliver the services for the society at large. And for the welfare of the society and this
sector also needs regulation to prevent the discrimination in the services based on
gender, age, place of origin, ethnicity and religious preferences (Ashe and Nazroo,
2017).
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P3
Equality can be defined as the status of being equal without any discrimination. It is
crucial in public services to ensure the equality of status and opportunity.
Equality Act 2010: this act defines the equality duty to ensure non-discrimination in
public services rather than just preventing discriminatory practices. The basic concept
of equality is "All individuals are equal" but in the political scenario, many scholars
argue that there are two concepts of equality. And these are equal worth i.e. equal moral
worth and equal authority (Wrench, 2016).
The meaning of equal authority is that no individual is subservient to the other
individual. And these basic concepts of equality are important to ensure fair treatment
in the public services, equality of opportunity and growth for all irrespective of their
gender, ethnicity and religion. For instance, in the recent past the EA, 2010 is amended
and incorporated equality duty (Sargeant, 2016).
Employment equality (religion or belief) regulation 2003: regulations are the
details of the provision of any act. And this regulation ensures that individuals are free
to follow and propagate the religion or belief but they cannot force others to convert
their religious preference.
Human rights Act 1998: the human rights Act is an extension of many international
regulations to prevent the violation of fundamental rights of human being: right to
equality, right to live a dignified life, equality of opportunities, freedom to move
independently, freedom to believe, expression, faith and worship, freedom to do
business or job of choice without any fear or favor. In case of violation of these rights
punitive punishment is in place (Wintemute, 2016).
Employment equality (sex discrimination) regulation 2005This regulation ensures
equal opportunities at the workplace without any gender bias. And as per the recent
ILO report, the gender gap is increasing in both the private and public sector and there
is an urgent need to offer senior leadership roles to the female employees (Sargeant,
2016).
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Employment equality (sexual orientation) regulation 2003This regulation ensures
the equality to work irrespective of sexual orientation. That means the LGBTQ
community is also part of the society and they cannot be denied to work because of
their sexual orientation. And there should not be any harassment and derogation of
them for it (Wrench, 2016).
Race relation amendment act, 2000
The RR (amendment) Act, 2000 is legislated to ensure the impartiality on the basis of
race and ensure the fair treatment and it is an extension of the earlier act.
Fair treatment Act is stipulated to ensure fair and just treatment of all without any fear
and favour. And it is the vision statement of ISA and it decided to put separate
responsibilities on all stakeholders of the society to prevent any derogatory practice
and also suggested constitution of equality and diversity action group to ensure the fair
treatment within the organization. It includes effective strategies and suggestion to bar
the unreasonable restriction on the basis of age. Significant default retirement age
(DRA), it decided the retirement age of the employees as 65 and workforce can demand
to work more than that if they are willing to do so (Shen et al.,2017).
Equality and human rights commission: for endorsing fair treatment and parity in
the civil services across the UK except for Ireland. This act ensures the equality of
opportunities on the basis of gender and offering the senior leadership role to the
females for eliminating the gender gap and discrimination on the basis of gender.
Citizen Advice Bureau: CAB is a UK based charity that provides instructions to the
citizen related to matters of money. Work, legal and finances. And it is a part of 316
charity organizations of the UK (McKay, 2016.).
Royal Association for the disability and rehabilitation (RADAR): it is a public sector
charity that ensures the fair treatment of the person with a disability and it is made to
support the independent living for them and also to empower them.
Independent monitoring board for prisoner’s: this monitoring board is prepared to
provide the good living condition of the prisoners and ensure any discrimination
against them. For example, there should not be any unfair treatment based on the sex,
duration of the imprisonment and any other factor (Wintemute, 2016).
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So, there is to ensure the fair, like and just treatment of them in the public services and
also the formulation of the effective laws and the regulations to ensure the diversity and
inclusion and also to implement changes in the laws to address the loopholes if any. The
government has formulated many laws and rules to bring diversity in the workforce
and create an inclusive environment to work (Shen et al., 2017).
Though, it is clear some prejudices also exist in the workplace due to religion and
ethnicity. For example, in the UK and many other nations across the globe, the Jew
community has faced several preconceptions and that instilled the aggression in them.
And also there is clear evidence from several studies that the formation of terrorists or
criminals in most of the cases took place in the prisons itself and it due to the
discriminatory behaviour against them and misbehaviour and torture that take place
there. So, the parliament of the UK must consider all these facts and try to amend the
specific laws (Sargeant, 2016).
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P4
Importance of understanding unconscious bias, prejudice and discriminatory
behaviour in the public services
Unconscious bias in the existence of the tendency to be unfair against the specific group
of the society and it can be against gender, class, religion and ethnicity. It is also known
as implicit partiality.
Cataleptic roots of the predispositions: there are several reasons for the unfairness and
it can due to the historical reasons also. For example, it is evident that 74% more white
population gets the jobs than the other ethnic groups with the same CV. And it can be
understood with the other example, it is also in the US less pain medication having been
offered to the Blacks, Latinos than that to the Whites (Kirk, 2018).
It is important to understand the reason behind the prejudices that one person, group
or community have. And “Project implicit” in the UK is designed to understand the
hidden reason for the unfair behaviour and in this project, people from different groups
have been surveyed and enquired about their understanding of unfair treatments and
they expected that it exists in the society. And affects the behaviour of educators, health
care service providers etc. (McKay, 2016.).
And also to understand the reasons further "IAT score" is also used to assess the choice
and behaviour of an individual. And the score in that shows the reason for such conduct.
Discriminatory attitude: this attitude also exists in the society in general and in public
services particular. And due to this behaviour people usually react negatively for the
people of different community or minority. And the reasons many: the patriarchal
structure of the society, even in the schools' children faces such discrimination.
According to the reports, some people face problems like harassments, molestation etc.
due to their preferences. In the UK, the IAT test is about taking the diversity sessions of
the employees and instilling the understanding about the positives of the diversity but it
is found that nobody takes it seriously (Ebisui et al., 2016).
Even in the public sector the companies and organization use different criteria for the
different group of population. Discriminatory behaviour or prejudices of a certain group
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is very important to understand and identify the reason behind the behaviour and the
steps need to be taken to address the issues. The "unbiased test" helps in understanding
the actual reason behind the discrimination and all the public places where it exists
(Kirk, 2018).
In the hospitals, patients are treated differently according to their gender and ethnicity
and in the workplace, the recruitment plans also differ from person to person. And it is
the reason of social aggression, negative attitude towards government policies and
procedures. And unfair treatment in the school has the potential to impact the value
system of the person. And it can have repercussion for life (Ebisui et al., 2016).
Discrimination refers to the unjust treatment or negative attitude towards one section
of the population. And can be visible at the times of appointment, overlooking the
person with the same skill set and qualification just for his or her ethnic origin or social
identity. And they are treated with hostility just for the reason that they are not part of
the group they belong to. It is also the biggest obstacle in creating an egalitarian society.
Typecasts, preconceptions and unfairness develop an emotional distance between the
group of the people.
And they find it difficult to help each other. There can be a different degree of impacts
due to this biases-it can be normal, modest and risky. And in the normal case, people
usually avoid interacting with the person or avoid them. And in the extreme case,
people usually take risky steps to avoid the person and it can result in mob lynching and
another life-threatening event also (Busby and James, 2016).
Stereotypes and unbiased behaviour can be understood with the example that people in
the UK, people of a certain group are given a game to play and were asked to hit the
intruder and be benign for the person with good objects. But accidentally people
identified the Blacks as the intruders and hit them and then they realized that they
made mistake in understanding the intention of the person due to their type cast and
pre mindset. And similar is the situation in real life. In real life also people have type
casts for the people from different category and discriminate against them without any
valid reason. The bias can be Attribution bias or Attention bias (Rooney, 2019).
The bias that people do in society can be intentional or unintentional. And it usually
exists because the brain makes the pattern based on the information available to it. And
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since, the early year of the life person learn and encounters such bias in the different
stance of his or her life and forget about them. But when the same incidence takes place
in their life they usually follow the same due to the reason that: people' brain tend to
seek patterns, take short-cuts. And taking the short-cut can be explained with the fact
that brain is always flooded with the information be it of use or not, and recognizes it in
the form of patterns and usually repeat the behavior when the need arises and takes the
shortest route possible and it is because of the cognitive facility of the brain (Cole,
2017).
Implicit attitude test was designed by the Mahzarin Banaji and Tony Greenwald in the
year 1995 in order to understand the reason for the particular way of behaving. And
this behaviour helps in understanding the reason, and the remedies for it. It can be
organic, it can be without any intention, it may affect the decision making in the person
and it can be reduced to zero (Rooney, 2019).
The can be mitigated if it is at the workplace by formulating identical criteria for each
individual and following the same parameters for assessing the performance and
offering the opportunity for growth and development. And in recent years several
studies have shown that such behaviour is due to the unpredictable trait of the brain.
And cannot be controlled immediately but handled by instilling the positive attitude in
the different category of the people and treating them on par with each other and
avoiding being judgmental (Busby and James, 2016).
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M1
The role of advisory agencies to investigate the nature of discrimination, the reasons for
it and the remedial measures taken by them to mitigate such practices in society. There
are several advisory agencies that advise the government to take necessary steps to
eliminate the impact of discrimination in public services.
Citizen Advice Bureau: CAB is a UK based charity that provides instructions to the
citizen related to matters of money. Work, legal and finances. And it is a part of 316
charity organizations of the UK (Cole, 2017).
Royal Association for the disability and rehabilitation (RADAR): it is a public sector
charity that ensures the fair treatment of the person with a disability and it is made to
support the independent living for them and also to empower them.
Independent monitoring board for prisoner’s: this monitoring board is prepared to
provide the good living condition of the prisoners and ensure any discrimination
against them. For example, there should not be any unfair treatment based on the sex,
duration of the imprisonment and any other factor. This board ensures that prisons
should not transform into the place in that formation of the terrorist and habitual
offender takes place (Easton and Matthews, 2016).
Commission for the women: the situation of the women across the globe is more or
less similar and people from the diverse working group have accepted the fact that they
are discriminated in the time of promotions and recruitment. And the commission is a
statutory commission in the UK and protects the rights of the women in the workplace
and protects them from any type of unfair and harassing behaviour for them (Fuller,
2017).
In recent years there are several moments took place to protect the rights and the
dignity of the women in the workplace has responded well in the public domain also. So,
there is a need for bringing change in the existing structure and protecting the rights of
the women in the workplace. There exist many other advisory agencies as trade unions
to protect the rights of the labours (French, 2017).
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And in the past, various movements were held by the labours to endorse the welfare of
the labours and ensure the fair and just treatment for them. It is also the result of the
movements of the trade unions that the organizations have ensured the implementation
of various national and international standards safeguards the rights, safety and
security at the workplace. Security of the job and a healthy working environment,
timely disposal of the salaries are the results of various labour movements (Fuller,
2017).
Independent commission for police conduct and complaints is in place to ensure the
code of conduct in the police personnel and also have a safety mechanism to safeguard
the rights of the victims. Both this organization is a charitable organization is
established to ensure the welfare of the people. There is also a charitable organization
to ensure the welfare of the PWDs and endorse their participation in the workforce. It
prepares and implements several plans to ensure the welfare of these people and
protect their rights and suggest the government in the form of their annual report
(Carpenter et al., 2015).
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D1
Impact of unconscious bias and the need for the response from the legislatures
There are several impacts of the unconscious behaviour, preconceptions and unfair
treatment in the public services. And these unjust and unfair practices results in the
formation of terrorism, criminalization and several other crimes. The complete scenario
can be explained with the following examples:
Discrimination at the time of recruitment: this is established fact that the public
services have a completely different plan for the recruitment and according to one
study it is found that the white population or the native of the UK get a job more easily
than the migrants resides there. And this is the reason for the aggression in the young
and unemployed population of the UK for the federal laws and the rules. For example:
For example, it is evident that 74% more white population gets the jobs than the other
ethnic groups with the same CV. And it leads to the dissatisfaction in the young
population. It is the also evident from the above example that unfair treatment led to
the inclination of these victims to the group’s that perpetrates of the crime and threat to
the social structure and the society (Easton and Matthews, 2016).
So, to eliminate these events there is a need to legislate a law to ensure the identical
plan of recruitment irrespective of gender, ethnicity, origin etc. And it should have
provision for the penal punishment in case of violation of the rules. It is necessary for
the authorities to ensure fair treatment and eliminate the need for having a separate
plan for minorities (Carpenter et al., 2015).
Discrimination in the promotion: in the UK, there exists discrimination on the basis of
ethnicity and religious preferences. And there also exists the need to promote the
workforce based on the performances. It is also one SDG that illustrates that it is the
duty of the national government to ensure just and fair workplace for the employees. In
the time of promotion, the employees form the minority groups are overlooked and are
not given the opportunity to grow. It creates frustration in them also inbuilt the
negative sentiment for the government (Casey-Maslen, 2017).
This hinders the process of growth. So, there is a need for the government to prepare a
plan or legislation that assesses the performances of the individuals based on the merit,
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