Memorandum from the Equal Opportunities
Commission
INTRODUCTION
1. The Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC)
was set up by the Sex Discrimination Act 1975. Its duties are
to work towards the elimination of discrimination between men
and women, to promote equality of opportunity between men and
women generally and in employment and vocational training, promote
equality for persons undergoing, having undergone or intending
to undergo gender reassignment. The EOC also keeps under review
the workings of the Sex Discrimination and Equal Pay Acts and
submits proposals for amending this legislation to the Secretary
of State as necessary.
2. The EOC welcomes this opportunity to
respond to the Public Administration Select Committee's inquiry
into Public Services. Given our remit, and the imminent implementation
of new gender equality duties on public bodies, we have focused
on questions 6 and 8, regarding user involvement and consultation.
GENDER EQUALITY
DUTY
3. Effective and efficient services need
to take into account the differing needs of service users. In
April 2007, a new duty will require local authorities to pay due
regard to the need to eliminate sex discrimination and harassment
and to promote equality of opportunity for women and men. In practice,
this will mean public bodies must consider whether their policies
and practices affect men and women differently and if so, whether
these differences result in discrimination or inequality. If differences
do lead to discrimination or inequality, policies and practices
will need to be changed. Instead of depending on individuals making
complaints about sex discrimination, the gender equality duty
gives public authorities legal responsibility for demonstrating
that they treat women and men fairly in policy-making, services
and employment.
Q6. Should users be more directly involved
in service delivery? If so, how can this be achieved?
4. The gender equality duty has the potential
to deliver practical improvements in the lives of women and men,
through helping public services to tackle gender inequality, which
remains persistent and widespread. One way of doing this will
be for public bodies to involve service users and citizens more
broadly in designing policies and services. Although there is
currently some good practice in this area, much more could be
done. Involving people in this way could help produce more targeted
and effective use of resources, more responsive services and improved
customer satisfaction. It should be a catalyst for real change
in the way that public sector organisations think about their
work, and the way that public policy and public services are designed
and delivered.
5. The specific duties require listed public
authorities to consult stakeholders when preparing a scheme. The
requirement is to consult employees, service users and others
(including trade unions) who may have an interest in the way the
authority carries out its functions. In addition, the scheme itself
must include an outline of the actions which the authority intends
to take, or has taken, in order to consult. By consulting stakeholders,
public authorities will be able to:
— build up a better picture of the
most important gender issues in their work;
— gather evidence to use in determining
priorities and in the gender impact assessment process;
— get feedback on their initial draft
objectives;
— develop greater ownership and understanding
of their gender equality objectives; and
— improve accountability to their staff,
service users and the general public.
6. Currently, although there is some good
practice, many public policies and services are designed without
much consideration of their different impact on women and men.
Sometimes this results in services designed predominantly around
men's needs but in other cases the services are designed with
women's needs as the basis and men lose out. The three examples
below illustrate the sort of under-performance that occurs when
public bodies fail to take account of the needs of both women
and men when designing policies and services.
Transport: research shows that on
average women use public transport in different ways and for different
reasons than men. Women are more likely than men to need transport
to access healthcare, childcare and food shopping, as well as
going to work. Unfortunately, transport services and town planning
rarely recognise this, as routes are often designed around the
typical travel patterns of men. They don't always provide easy
access to transport for those carrying children or pushchairs,
or recognise that women have a greater fear of travelling at night.
The Gender Equality Duty could see transport service planners
providing more accessible buses, improving bus routes across town
to supermarkets, schools and health centres and increasing security
at key interchanges.
Regeneration: community involvement
is essential to sustaining regeneration activity in deprived areas.
However, men and women interact with their neighbourhoods in different
ways and experience different barriers to participation. For example,
lack of childcare, transport time and the perceived male ethos
of meetings are significant barriers to women attending meetings,
whereas men are more likely to be put off attending a meeting
due to a lack of trust, a lack of information or because a community
venue is not welcoming to them. Women are also more likely to
be involved in community groups but have less influence over decision-making
in their neighbourhoods. The Gender Equality Duty could see regeneration
practitioners tackling barriers to participation for example,
building the capacity of women to influence decision-making through
workshops and training, and monitoring involvement by gender as
well as faith and race.
Health services: a different approach
often needs to be taken towards men and women in the prevention
and treatment of disease and illness. Men are less likely than
women to visit their GP, which means that they often seek treatment
late in an illness. This is bad for their health and wellbeing,
and costs the NHS more in the long run. For example, although
women are more susceptible to lung cancer, more men die of the
disease because they seek help late. The Gender Equality Duty
could see GPs improving the way they provide services to men,
possibly by targeting men and providing drop-in clinics at sporting
events or workplaces.
Q8. Do official consultations typically manage
to capture the views of the right people? What kinds of consultation
are most effective in engaging with the appropriate people?
7. The gender duty recognises that in many
situations, the views of both women and men are often not taken
into account by public authorities. There is a need for both sexes
to fully participate in a consultation process, in order to get
a full picture of their different concerns. Where one sex has
been under-represented or disadvantaged in a policy area, service
or employment issue, public authorities may need to make special
efforts to encourage participation. For example, women are less
likely to be involved in community decision-making than men. Similarly,
men may not be included in discussions on childcare services.
There may also be particular barriers to participation where a
minority group has experienced multiple disadvantages, for example,
on the grounds of ethnicity and sexual orientation.
8. Consulting on gender means public bodies
will have to:
— Consult both men and women (and,
where appropriate, girls and boys). It is important for example,
that those consulted are not only community leaders. They are
disproportionately likely to be men and may hold different views
or have different experiences to women and girls from the same
community.
— Make sure consultation processes
give adequate attention to issues of gender equality—this
involves ensuring that questions are structured to bring out any
differences between men and women, as well as using methods that
both men and women feel confident and comfortable with. For example,
some women may be less likely to attend, or to speak out at a
public meeting if they do not feel sufficiently confident, if
their community discourages women taking up public roles, or if
there are language barriers.
9. A range of measures can be used to encourage
both women and men to get involved in consultation:
— Use different methods of consultation
such as focus groups or interviews as well as formal consultation
meetings.
— Rotate the chairing of meetings so
that both men and women have this role.
— Try different meeting formats—include
small group discussions as well as large plenary sessions which
many people can find intimidating.
— Analyse men and women's contribution
to meetings to ensure both sexes have equal opportunity to participate—you
can take steps to change consultation methods and meeting formats
if it is clear that one group are less willing or able to participate
in your current structures.
— Hold meetings at varied times so
men and women can attend.
— Consider holding women-only and men-only
meetings if this is likely to generate more effective engagement.
10. Although it will often not be appropriate,
in some circumstances it may be sensible to hold consultations
for specific groups or in a single-sex environment. The EOC recommends
that consultation on employment issues with transsexual people
should be conducted separately, although they should be actively
encouraged to participate in mainstream consultation processes
too.
11. Where women or men have been under-represented
or disadvantaged in a policy or service area, special effort may
be needed to encourage participation. For example, women have
rarely been involved in decision-making on regeneration whereas
men may not have been previously included in discussions on childcare
services.
12. Consultation is also especially important
as a way of counter-balancing the under-representation of one
sex in the decision-making processes of an organisation. For example,
women are significantly under-represented as local authority councillors
and chief executives. It is therefore particularly important for
councils to take steps to make sure that women's voices are heard
in decision-making.
February 2007
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