Hello and welcome to this week’s employment law news from Reculver Solicitors.

In the name of Equality
The Equality Bill has been approved by the House of Commons and will come into force in October 2010, with some provisions being delayed till 2011. Some of the main points to be aware of are:

What is covered?
The Equality Act consolidates and extends discrimination law to cover age, disability, sex, gender reassignment, sexual orientation, race, religion or belief.
The Act also covers in many but not all instances, marriage and civil partnerships.
These will all be ‘Protected Characteristics’.

Disability:
‘Disability related' discrimination will be replaced with a prohibition on discriminating against a disabled person by treating them unfavourably where that treatment is not a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.
Employers wont be able to ask job applicants questions about their health and whether they have a disability, other than in specified circumstances (including whether the applicant will be able to carry out a function that is intrinsic to the work concerned).
Employers will still be entitled to screen applicants about health after making a job offer.

Discrimination by Association:
The ban on discrimination by association (for example a parent of a disabled child) will be extended to all protected characteristics. This will now cover spouses, partners, parents and carers who look after a disabled person or older relative from discrimination. They will be protected by virtue of their very close link to that person.

Discrimination based on Perception:
Employees wrongly thought to have a protected characteristic (for example, an employee thought to be gay but who isn’t) will be able to claim for sex discrimination.

Combined Characteristics:
From April 2011 a claim can cover combined characteristics (for example a woman who is discriminated against both for being a woman and being gay)

Recommendations:
Tribunals will be able to make recommendations when unlawful discrimination is proved.
This could include re-training staff, publishing its selection criteria used for staff transfer or promotion, setting up a review panel to deal with equal opportunities, harassment and grievances.
Failure to comply could be damaging to the employer's reputation and be used in evidence against the employer in future discrimination claims.

Under Represented Groups:
Employers can choose someone for a job from an under-represented group when they have the choice between two or more candidates who are ‘as qualified' as each other.
However Employers must not have a policy of doing that in every case.
Many employers will not wish to take the risk of trying to apply this in practice.

Talking about Pay:
Employees will be free to discuss pay, and whether there is a connection between pay and having (or not having) a particular protected characteristic
This will cover seeking or giving information with current and former colleagues.
Action taken against them for being involved in such a pay discussion will be unlawful victimisation. So secrecy clauses against talking about pay will be out.
Employers with 250 employees or more will be encouraged, on a voluntary basis, to publish their pay statistics to demonstrate how they are tackling the gender pay gap.
This may become compulsory in 2013.
Public bodies with 150 or more employees may have to publish their gender pay gap from April 2011.

Public Sector Equality Duty:
From April 2011 there will be a new single public sector equality duty.
Public bodies will be required to consider needs, by reference to these characteristics, when designing and delivering public services.

We will have more news on this major piece of legislation in due course!

James Carmody
RECULVER SOLICITORS

Tel: 0207 324 6271 Fax: 0207 477 2276 info@reculversolicitors.co.uk
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