Last week the government released its "framework for a fairer future—The Equality Bill".
The main purpose of the bill is to consolidate all of the current discrimination legislation. Although the current legislation is by no means perfect, will an entirely new bill really correct the present problems or just create yet another piece of employment related legislation that employers will have to grapple with? (Small businesses account for the majority of companies in the UK and directors are likely to have concerns about this new piece of legislation).
Probably the most controversial aspect of the bill is that it will allow employers to take positive action when selecting between equally qualified candidates where that organisation has a lack of employees from a specific protected group. The purpose of this is to allow companies to choose an employee from an ethnic minority or a female employee without discriminating against the other candidates. It will be interesting to see if the legislation will be drafted with sufficient clarity to give employers the protection they will want when positively discriminating. How will we know if an organisation is sufficiently male-dominated to qualify?
My concern would be that female employees or those from an ethnic minority will be viewed as having "got the job" because they happen to be in that protected class. This may in turn create an atmosphere of hostility and negativity towards those employees.
The other recommendations include the introduction of wider powers for Employment Tribunals to make declarations where there is a finding of discrimination which applies to the whole workforce rather than the individual Claimants; the creation of a single equality duty on the public sector; and outlawing discrimination on the grounds of age in the provision of goods and services. This is a continuation of what has already happened with other areas of discrimination law.
While any move to promote equality should be championed, it will be interesting to see what is contained within the forthcoming paper, which will provide a lot more detail on exactly how this new piece of legislation will be implemented.
Tracy Lacey-Smith is head of employment at SA Law.
Posted 30 June 2008 : Director.co.uk
