Memorandum by the Equal Opportunities
Commission
SUMMARY
The EOC welcomes the creation of the Commission
for Equality and Human Rights. We believe that, if well established,
resourced and led, a single equality body could be very effective
in securing equality, tackling discrimination and promoting human
rights. From our work we recognise that sex equality is becoming
an increasingly subtle and complex issue that is best tackled
in a broader equality context.
— We would like to see the CEHR's priorities
including:
— closing the substantial income gap
between women and men;
— securing more support for modern
families so that women and men can both balance paid work and
caring responsibilities;
— improving public services and policies
so that they more effectively meet the real and sometimes different
needs of women and men;
— promoting greater safety, including
addressing domestic violence, rape, forced marriage and trafficking
for forced prostitution;
— securing more equal sharing of power
between women and men; and
— securing respect for transgender
people so they have equal rights and access to services.
— We welcome the final report and recommendations
of the Equalities Review, in particular the report's recognition
that mothers of young children; and British women of Pakistani
and Bangladeshi heritage face some of the largest employment penalties.
Our own investigation, Moving on up?[1],
looked at Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Black Caribbean women and
employment and supports the Equalities Review findings. We have
identified four external barriers and made recommendations to
address each to ensure that the opportunity presented by these
increasingly well qualified, confident and ambitious women is
not missed by employers.
— The EOC welcomes the Discrimination
Law Review (DLR), which we view as a significant step towards
creating more positive and effective discrimination legislation.
Some of the principles that we would like to see underpinning
a single equality act include being pro-active—placing the
onus for achieving equality and eliminating discrimination primarily
with political, economic and social institutions rather than individuals,
and outcome-focussed—the purpose of the act should be to
promote substantive equality and to eliminate systemic as well
as individualised discrimination, rather than dealing with individual
cases once they arise.
INTRODUCTION
1. The Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC)
is the statutory body responsible for sex equality in Great Britain.
Our specific statutory duties include promoting equality between
women and men, seeking to eliminate sex discrimination and unequal
pay and advising the Government on keeping sex discrimination
and equal pay legislation up to date. The EOC is a non-departmental
public body, largely funded through grant-in-aid, and is the leading
agency working to eliminate sex discrimination in 21st Century
Britain.
2. We welcome the opportunity to respond
to this timely, wide-ranging inquiry into equalities. This submission
covers the EOC's thinking on:
— The issues facing the new Commission
for Equality and Human Rights.
— The recommendations of the Equalities
Review.
— The Discrimination Law Review and
any Single Equality Bill.
COMMISSION FOR
EQUALITY AND
HUMAN RIGHTS
3. The EOC has consistently supported the
establishment of the Commission for Equality and Human Rights
(CEHR) since it was first proposed in 2002. In an increasingly
complex society, a single integrated body has a greater chance
of successfully advancing equality, tackling discrimination and
promoting human rights than a series of single-issue bodies do.
EOC's recent work on ethnic minority women and employment and
on the impact of caring responsibilities and social care on women's
employment show how inter-connected different equality issues
are. In addition, because the CEHR will handle issues that touch
the lives of a large proportion of the population, it has the
potential to secure a wide base of popular support. This should
help CEHR to pursue the whole of its remit effectively, including
those parts that deal with stigmatised minorities. CEHR should
also be a clearer, stronger voice for equality and human rights
than individual equality commissions have been able to be.
4. International comparative research commissioned
jointly by the EOC together with the Disability Rights Commission
(DRC) and the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE)[2]
shows that integrated equality commissions have been very successful
in a number of countries, although their success depends on a
number of pre-requisites being in place. We therefore believe
that, if well established, resourced and led, the CEHR has the
potential to be very effective in securing equality, tackling
discrimination and promoting human rights.
Pre-requisites for CEHR's success
5. The pre-requisites for CEHR's success
include:
— Strong, skilled leadership.
— An appropriate suite of roles and
powers.
— Resources, both money and skilled
staff.
— A clear and compelling vision that
conveys the benefits of greater equality to society as a whole
as well as to individuals.
— A legal framework that gives parity
of protection to all protected groups.
— Strong governance and good relationships
with a wide range of stakeholders.
— Institutional arrangements and working
practices that reflect the reality of devolved government in Scotland
and Wales.
— Flexibility, including the ability
to address single strand issues (such as pregnancy discrimination)
as well as generic equality issues (such as harassment) and inter-sectional
or multiple discrimination issues (such as
6. Some of these pre-requisites—such
as the powers given to the CEHR by Parliament or the legal framework
within which it operates—are outside the direct control
of CEHR itself. Delays in appointing both Commissioners and the
Chief Executive mean that the CEHR's leadership faces an extremely
challenging timetable in addressing the other issues. In most
areas it is also too early as yet to judge their success in doing
so. Critical issues such as CEHR's priorities and work programme,
its organisational design and ways of working and its approach
to working with stakeholders have all still to emerge.
7. We welcome CEHR's consultation about
its draft vision and mission, although we think both could be
strengthened, in particular by spelling out more clearly the benefits
of greater equality and by drawing more explicitly on the excellent
statement of CEHR's fundamental purpose contained in clause three
of the 2006 Equality Act.
8. We are pleased to see that so far CEHR
has tried hard to design itself in ways that reflect the realities
of devolved government in Scotland and Wales.
9. We are concerned about whether CEHR will
have a sufficient budget to deliver its responsibilities. The
Government has allocated CEHR £70 million. This sum is a
bit more than the combined budgets of the existing three commissions
but takes little account of the fact the CEHR's remit is very
significantly wider than that of the existing bodies: CEHR covers
three new equality strands (age, religion or belief and sexual
orientation) as well as human rights. We know from our own experience
of the historic under-funding of the EOC that too little money
will affect CEHR's effectiveness and are concerned that the budget
set is quite significantly less than is needed.
CEHR Priorities: Long Term
10. As the EOC looks forward to the CEHR
we have identified what we see as an "unfinished revolution".
Changing social roles and attitudes, migration and demographic
change have transformed British society in the last 30 years.
Women's and men's lives and expectations have changed so rapidly
that it comes as a shock to young people now to hear that practices—such
as forcing women to leave jobs when they married or had children,
or preventing women from having mortgages in their own name—were
lawful within their parents' lifetime. However, many aspects of
life have not kept pace with these changes, which means that the
full benefits of greater sex equality are not yet being realised.
11. Workplace practices and public services
are still largely designed around the "breadwinner dad, stay
at home wife" family model, even though today fathers want
to spend more time with their children. Mothers often want, and
need to work for financial reasons, as well as care for their
children. But in order to balance work and caring women are frequently
forced to trade down jobs in order to work part-time or flexible
hours, with the result that four out of five people who work part-time
are working beneath the level to which they are qualified, at
considerable cost to the economy as well as to individual women.
And as the population ages, parents are increasingly called upon
to care for elderly relatives at the same time as bringing up
children. Alongside these new challenges, some old challenges
remain. Although it is falling slowly, the hourly gender pay gap
is still 17% for full time workers and a massive (and stubborn)
38% for part time workers. Women still tend to be concentrated
into a narrow range of jobs that do not use their skills and offer
only low pay and poor prospects. Almost half of all pregnant women
face unfair treatment at work, sexual harassment is still rife,
women pensioners are still disproportionately likely to be poor,
violence against women is still widespread and the top jobs and
positions of power are still dominated overwhelmingly by men.
12. In order to meet these challenges CEHR
will need an ambitious agenda for change. CEHR will no doubt want
to define this agenda on a cross-strand or integrated basis but
as EOC's expertise and remit is gender, we are developing our
view of the major challenges of the next ten years on that basis.
Following extensive research and consultation, in July we will
be publishing a document setting out this gender agenda in full.
The central elements of this document will be:
— closing the substantial income gap
between women and men;
— securing more support for modern
families so that women and men can both balance paid work and
caring responsibilities;
— improving public services and policies
so that they more effectively meet the real and sometimes different
needs of women and men;
— promoting greater safety, including
addressing domestic violence, rape, forced marriage and trafficking
for forced prostitution;
— securing more equal sharing of power
between women and men; and
— securing respect for transgender
people so they have equal rights and access to services.
13. The draft document setting out these
suggested long term CEHR priorities is attached as annex one.
As this document will be launched later in the year and is currently
confidential to EOC, the Committee is requested to treat this
attachment as confidential.
CEHR Priorities: Short Term
14. Alongside this long-term agenda, CEHR
will need a short-term plan for its first year or so of work.
Given CEHR's stated desire to pursue the best of the initiatives
of the existing commissions, we have submitted to CEHR EOC's thoughts
about some short-term priorities and opportunities. The key points
are:
— Following up the recommendations
of EOC's general formal investigation (GFI)[3]
into how workplace culture and practice could be changed to allow
individuals to better meet the demands on their time, an issue
of particular importance to women at work.
— Following up the recommendations
of EOC's GFI into the barriers facing ethnic minority women at
work[4].
— Tackling the undervaluing of jobs
predominantly done by women, following up EOC research that will
be published imminently.
— A project to promote improvements
in social care services and independent living, covering needs
of disabled people, older people and carers.
— Keeping better support for modern
families high on the political agenda.
— Embedding and enforcing the gender,
race and disability equality duties, including promoting a strategic
approach to equality by Government.
— An inquiry to establish the incidence
of harassment in the workplace.
— Influencing the Single Equality Bill.
THE EQUALITIES
REVIEW
Taking forward the recommendations
15. The EOC recognises the large and difficult
task that the Equalities Review was asked to tackle. The Review's
remit was very wide and the Review team showed great energy and
determination in approaching it. We appreciate the open nature
of much of the work and the many opportunities that stakeholders
had to contribute to the project.
16. We are supportive of many of the recommendations
included in the final report, and particularly welcome the focus
on the barriers that still face mothers of young children and
ethnic minority women. We hope that the Government, CEHR and others
will take a strategic and creative approach to implementing the
recommendations. We particularly want to see the Government taking
forward the main recommendations made:
— to build a consensus on equality,
— to measure progress towards equality
consistently,
— to build the evidence base needed
to monitor this progress,
— to make the legal framework simpler
and
— to use public procurement strongly
to support equality.
Mothers and Fathers of Young Children
17. EOC's own work has shown that achieving
equality for women at work is far from done, and we were encouraged
to have this recognised in the Equalities Review. We would add
that the issues facing mothers are likely to become issues for
fathers too. Although fathers' working patterns are currently
radically different from those of mothers (typically, fatherhood
leads men to increase their working hours whilst mothers reduce
theirs and get stuck in low paid part time jobs), men's attitudes
to their role as fathers are changing.
18. EOC research found that 70% of fathers
with babies under 15 months want to be more involved with their
children, and almost nine out of 10 new dads (87%) are as confident
in caring for their child as their partner.[5]
We also know that three in four people say it should be as easy
for men to take time off for caring responsibilities as women.
A more flexible approach to leave for parents in their child's
early years is needed to tackle this, building on the improvements
that the Government has already introduced. The final report of
our Transformation of Work[6]
investigation is due to be launched in June 2007. Throughout the
course of this investigation we have been working with employers
to develop innovative models for the workplace of the future.
Our early findings revealed a huge appetite for flexible working,
with 52% of men and 48% of women saying they would like to work
more flexible hours.[7]
Ethnic minority women
19. We were also encouraged to see the recognition
of the persistent employment penalty faced by Pakistani and Bangladeshi
women identified by the Equalities Review. The EOC has recently
published the final report of our Moving on up? investigation[8].
This looked at the employment, pay and progression of Pakistani,
Bangladeshi and Black Caribbean women. It revealed, contrary to
popular perception, that young women from these groups are leaving
school and higher education with good qualifications and are supported
by their families in their ambition to combine a career with family
life. Earlier generations of women were held back by a lack of
skills or by lack of English language skills and some action is
still needed to help women for whom these remain problems. However,
looking forward, lack of skills or problems with English are no
longer the main issues that need to be addressed.
20. Following extensive research and consultation,
the EOC's investigation concluded that one of the biggest problems
in this field was the outdated perception of many policy makers
and employers, who believe that ethnic minority women do not want
to work, have poor skills, do not speak English well and are held
back from working by family and cultural pressures. These are
increasingly becoming outdated stereotypes that do not reflect
the reality of an increasingly well qualified, ambitious cohort
of women who want to combine working and having a family life
just as other women do. Because policies and workplace practices
have largely been based on what are now outdated stereotypes,
they are not helping ethnic minority women to overcome the real
barriers that they face.
21. EOC's research identified that the main
real barriers are:
— A combination of racism, sexism
and anti-Muslim prejudice: one in three Black Caribbean working
women under 35 have experienced racist comments at work; Bangladeshi,
Pakistani and Black Caribbean women are two to three times more
likely than white women to be asked about plans for marriage and
children at interviews.
— Workplace culture: For example,
if an organisation encourages long hours, drinking with colleagues
and clients, time away from home, this could cause problems for
many employees but it will be more of a barrier to women who are
lone parents and/ or have larger families. Ethnic minority women
are disproportionately likely either to be lone parents or to
have larger than average families.
— Insufficient support for working
parents and carers: Finding affordable childcare and a job
with flexible working arrangements is critical for Black Caribbean
women (who are more likely to be lone parents) and Bangladeshi
and Pakistani women (who are more likely to have larger than average
families). As these women are disproportionately likely to be
in lower paid jobs, the cost of childcare is an even greater obstacle
to them than to women in general.
— Ethnic minority women's issues
are invisible because of a silo-mentality that treats race, faith
and gender separately: Often when looking at gender there is a
focus on white, middle-class women, and when looking at race there
is a focus on ethnic minority men. Therefore the needs of ethnic
minority women are often overlooked and means that their voice
is also often absent from policy development debates. The CEHR
will be in a strong position to spearhead a more holistic, joined-up
approach, building on EOC's work.
Data collection
22. EOC also strongly supports the Equalities
Review's recommendations for a cross-cutting government review
of data needs and for better use of data by government, public
bodies and the private sector. Better collection and use of data
is vital, for example, to understand the specific needs of ethnic
minority women.
23. Better and better-used data are also vital
for the success of the public sector equality duties. The Gender
Equality Duty (GED) came into force in April 2007 and requires
public bodies to demonstrate that they are promoting equality
for women and men and that they are eliminating sexual discrimination
and harassment. Public authorities have to gather information
on the effect of their policies and practices on men and women
and use this information to identify priorities for improvement
in their employment, service and policy functions. The gender
equality duty requires public authorities to focus on the issues
within their remit that have the greatest importance and impact
on gender equality and so public authorities will need to ensure
that they have sufficient data to enable them to do this.
24. In the EOC's submission to the Comprehensive
Spending Review 2007[9],
we highlighted the pivotal role of the Treasury using the equality
duties as levers on government departments and public bodies to
improve service outcomes and to ensure a more efficient and effective
use of resources. Data is key to this and our recommendations
included that sex, race, disability disaggregated data be collected
and utilised to inform target setting and indicators for progress.
For example, evidence from the EOC's General Formal Investigation
into Gender Segregation in Modern Apprenticeships[10]
underlined the fact that increasing overall participation will
not necessarily tackle this segregation. A gender-sensitive target
would need explicitly to aim to increase the participation of
women and men in sectors that are not traditional for their sex.
DISCRIMINATION LAW
REVIEW
25. The EOC welcomes the Discrimination
Law Review (DLR) and the proposed Single Equality Bill. We see
them as significant potential steps towards creating a more positive,
effective simpler legislative framework. However, there is no
magic in the device of a Single Equality Bill in itself: the provisions
within it are what count. Until the Government has published its
proposals, it will not be clear whether the outcomes of the DLR
will indeed make the law either simpler or more effective.
26. The Sex Discrimination Act (SDA) was
passed in 1975 and the Equal Pay Act (EPA) came into force in
the same year. Although the significance of this legislation cannot
be denied the outcome has not been as successful as we would have
hoped. For example, the full-time gender pay gap although reduced
from 29.4% in 1975 still remains at 17% today, and the part-time
pay gap has barely changed from 41.6%-38.5%. At the current rate
of progress the full time pay gap will not be closed until 2085.
Although discrimination against pregnant women and sexual harassment
are both unlawful, both remain widespread. At the heart of the
weakness of the current law is their failure to require action
from institutions to pursue equality. Current laws largely rely
on individuals complaining about discrimination after it has happened:
they do little either to prevent discrimination occurring in the
first place or to address the impact of past inequality and disadvantage.
27. EOC has identified some basic principles
that we would like to see underpinning any unified equality act.
These are that the legislation should be:
— Outcome-focussed: the purpose of
the single (unified) equality act should be to promote substantive
equality and to eliminate systemic as well as individualised discrimination.
— Equality amongst strands: the single
equality act should harmonise equality and anti- discrimination
provisions up to the highest standard to give all protected persons
equally comprehensive rights.
— Positive: the law should promote
respect for the equal dignity and worth of each individual.
— Proactive: the law should place the
onus for achieving equality and eliminating discrimination primarily
with political, economic and social institutions.
— Accessible: the law should set standards
that are clear, intelligible and consistent.
— Enforceable: the law should be capable
of being effectively and efficiently enforced when necessary,
with accessible, effective and timely means of securing redress
for individuals and, where appropriate, groups of individuals.
— Inclusive: the law should provide
opportunities for individuals and communities to engage in the
process of change and participate in decisions that affect their
lives.
28. These principles formed the basis of
the Commission's April 2006 preliminary submission to the DLR[11].
Clearly until a Green Paper is finally published, we cannot judge
the extent to which the Government's proposals will meet these
standards. However, we are concerned that the proposals may be
weaker and more cautious in some areas than we would like. In
particular, we are concerned about whether there will be any obligation
on institutions beyond the public sector to take action to tackle
inequality and about whether there will be greater protection
from discrimination and inequality for people with caring responsibilities.
29. The EOC's full agenda of proposals that
we would like to see addressed by the DLR is:
— Introduce a Single Equality Act that
embraces multiple (or intersectional) discrimination.
— Incorporate a purpose clause into
the Single Equality Act to assist in the interpretation of the
legislation, and to give a "steer" to courts and tribunals.
A purpose clause could also help the public to understand the
underlying principles of anti-discrimination law by setting out
its goals and aspirations in a language that is both accessible
and meaningful.
— Provide employers and others with
greater freedom to take proportionate positive action expanding
GB law to reflect the scope for positive action allowed by EU
law.
— Introduce an integrated public sector
duty covering all equality strands that provides for:
— A strategic cross-governmental approach
to promoting equality.
— Express duties on both the Secretary
of State and inspectorates to promote equality.
— Include caring status in the integrated
public sector duty so public bodies must address the impact of
their policies and services on people with caring responsibilities.
— Extend the right to request flexible
working to all employees.
— Reform the equal pay provisions to
enable:
— Women to claim equal pay in circumstances
where there is no actual comparator doing equal work, but where
there is prima facie evidence of discrimination in the employer's
pay practices.
— Employers to be protected against
claims being brought while they carry out a rigorous equal pay
review and take action to eliminate discriminatory pay practices
and implement equal pay.
— The CEHR and other interested parties
to be able to challenge discriminatory pay practices by bringing
representative actions on behalf of groups of workers.
— The Employment Tribunal to manage
complex equal pay cases more effectively.
— Ensure better access to justice for
individuals by:
— Harmonising the definitions of discrimination
across all the various equality strands and taking a consistent
approach to exemptions.
— Providing transsexuals with protection
against discrimination equivalent to that enjoyed by the other
equality strands.
— Providing better protection against
victimisation for those bringing claims or helping others to do
so.
— — Providing better protection
for volunteers.
— Transferring jurisdiction for cases
raising matters of discrimination in Goods, Facilities and Services,
and in Education, to the Employment Tribunal.
— Enabling the Employment Tribunal
to:
— Make enforceable general
recommendations where the evidence warrants.
— Order employers to reinstate
or re-engage employees where appropriate.
— Enforce awards of compensation.
— Empowering the CEHR to institute
proceedings in its own name.
1 http://www.eoc.org.uk/PDF/bme_final_report2007.pdf Back
2
http://www.eoc.org.uk/PDF/4_single_equality_body.pdf Back
3
Due to published on 14 June Back
4
Moving On Up, published in March 2006; http://www.eoc.org.uk/PDF/bme_final_report2007.pdf Back
5
Thompson, M et al (2005) Dads and their babies: Leave arrangements
in the first year. EOC: Manchester. Back
6
http://www.eoc.org.uk/PDF/equality_review_interim_repot_response.pdf Back
7
http://www.eoc.org.uk/Default.aspx?page=20024 Back
8
http://www.eoc.org.uk/PDF/bme_final_report2007.pdf Back
9
http://www.eoc.org.uk/Docs/CSR_submission.doc Back
10
EOC Free to Choose-tackling gender barriers to better jobs
(March 2005) Back
11
Available at http://intranet.eoc.org.uk/PDF/DLR_submission_April_2006.pdf Back
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