May signpost public sector diversity audit u-turn
Equalities Minister Theresa May has backtracked on proposals to audit public sector workers on personal issues like sexuality, disability and religion.
She has published a written statement in Parliament suggesting the plan to ask around 27,000 public sector organisations, including schools, police and councils is under revision.
Although she has not stated so outright, the £28.6 million cost of the audit in times of government austerity and cuts may have something to with her decision.
In the statement, May said: “We have considered the draft regulations further in the light of our policy objective of ensuring that public bodies consider equality when carrying out their functions without imposing unnecessary burdens and bureaucracy.
“As a result, we think there is room to do more to strip out unnecessary process requirements.”
A separate policy review explains public organisations will not have to publish details of any “engagement” or “equality analysis”’ reviews involved in drafting policy or equality objectives.
The revised proposals were due to become law on April 6, 2011 but are now subject to delay.
The Government Equalities Office (GEO) also announced that the commencement date for the new general equality duty for England, Scotland and Wales will be April 5, 2011.
“This revision of the specific duties may create a degree of uncertainty for public authorities,” said the Equality and Human rights Commission. “The commission previously set out its views on the previous draft regulations and we will review the new proposals before submitting our views to the GEO.
“We support the aim to reduce bureaucracy and we will need to examine the new proposals closely to make sure that they offer organisations certainty; without that certainty public bodies will simply replace bureaucratic procedures with legalistic overprotection to guard against every possible source of challenge.
“Our focus remains on providing public authorities with the information and guidance that they need to prepare for the new equality duty.”
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