Amendment to Race Relations Act a welcome development

As from 31 May 2002, all public bodies are responsible for ensuring that their policies and services remove unlawful race discrimination and promote race equality. This welcome development arises from the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 and is an attempt to take on board the lessons of the Stephen Lawrence Enquiry.

The power of institutional discrimination may be well known to LAGCAR members, but it appears to be a new concept to some employers and service providers. These changes move us on from an understanding of equality as finding individual remedies for individual victims, to an understanding of the need to promote and deliver equality.

As a starting point, all public authorities were required to produce a race equality action plan by 31 May. These must cover both employment and the provision of goods, facilities and services. For bodies with more than 150 employees, monitoring is also compulsory.

Union and community groups have a vital role in ensuring public bodies pay more than lip service to this. Many are also campaigning for this statutory duty to promote equality to apply across all discrimination grounds, as is already the case in Northern Ireland and Scotland.

ILGA-Europe – the European Region of the International Lesbian and Gay Association – has recently produced a policy paper on pushing for this at European Union level – After the Framework Directive: Combating discrimination outside employment. The paper can be downloaded from their website at
www.ilga-europe.org

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