The Women and Equality Unit (WEU) works to reduce
and remove barriers to social participation, improve legislative and
institutional frameworks for equality and support economic and
social opportunities for women. It works across Government to:
Specific Roles of the Women and Equality Unit
-
Leading the development of a more integrated
approach across Government on equality to increase
opportunities for all.
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Intervening when the normal processes
of Government would not deliver its gender equality objectives.
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Leading on legislation and sponsoring
other bodies (the Equal Opportunities Commission and Women's
National Commission) in the equality areas where WEU has policy
lead within Government.
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Evaluating the impact of policies and
contributing to redesign/new policies.
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Measuring improvements in gender equality
across Government against public service agreement (PSA) targets.
How we are tackling inequalities - the WEU is
leading on taking forward several key policy areas:
Women and Work
Commission (WWC)
The WWC was set up by the Prime Minister in 2004 to
look into the causes of the gender pay gap and improving
opportunities for women at work.
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In February 2006 the WWC issued Shaping a Fairer
Future. This report proposed a wealth of practical ideas on
how to close the gender pay and opportunities gap and listed 40
recommendations covering skills, training, part time work etc.
They estimated that increasing women's participation in the labour
market and in higher paid occupation and roles could be worth £15 -
£23bn a year to the UK economy.
-
WEU produced an Action Plan in September 2006 in
response. The actions taken in this report aimed to challenge gender
stereotypes, facilitate work-life balance, improve access to
training for women, support women back into work, and spread best
practice among employers.
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In April 2007 we issued Towards a
Fairer Future, which gave a full update on progress against the
WWC recommendations one year on from the Commission’s
recommendations and which built on our initial response set out in
the Action Plan. This report set out the comprehensive and
co-ordinated programme of action being taken forward across
Government, working closely with a wide range of organisations which
have an interest in the issues.
Key areas of progress include:
-
Quality Part-Time Work Initiative –
We are funding 13 projects via our £500,000 initiative designed to
increase the number of senior and quality jobs that are available on
a part-time basis. This is a key component to tackling the
gender pay and opportunities gap
-
Exemplar Employers – working with
Opportunity Now, we have signed up 115 employers, from both the
private and public sectors, who have exemplar initiatives covering a
wide range of best practice on gender equality, including equal pay
-
£40
million spend to help women with low skills gain qualifications and
develop their confidence to get back into work
-
Equality
Reps – capacity building for equality reps was added as a new
priority theme in the Union Modernisation Fund (UMF) Round 2, and
launched on 20 November 2006. New projects are expected to be
announced in September 2007
-
Gender
Equality Check Tool – we are working with the Small Business
Service, the TUC, private sector equality experts and other key
stakeholders to develop a light touch gender equality check to allow
employers to see where they could improve their practices in
relation to gender equality issues. This will be rolled out via a
pilot programme in summer 2007
Gender Equality Duty
-
The recently introduced public sector duty on
'gender equality' brings about one of the biggest advances in this
area since the 1975 Sex Discrimination Act. From 6 April 2007,
all public authorities are required by a statutory duty to promote
equality of opportunity between men and women, as opposed to just
eliminate discrimination and harassment between them.
-
This new gender equality duty, which is similar to
the existing duties on race and disability, is designed to make the
public sector more effective in the way that it makes policy,
delivers services and treats its staff.
Gender Equality PSA
Commission for Equality and Human Rights (CEHR)
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The
Equality Act to create the CEHR received Royal Assent in Feb
2006.
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Trevor Phillips was appointed Chair of the CEHR on 8 September
2007.
-
In October 2007 the CEHR took over the functions of the
Equal Opportunities Commission, the Disability Rights Commission and
Commission for Racial Equality.
-
The new Commission
will also combat discrimination on the grounds of age, religion or
belief and sexual orientation as well as having a duty to promote
human rights.
Discrimination Law Review (DLR)
-
The Government
is committed to introduce a Single Equality Bill during this
Parliament. To ensure the delivery of this commitment, in February
2005 the Government launched the Discrimination Law Review (DLR)
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The DLR has been
set up to undertake a fundamental review of equality legislation and
bring forward proposals to undertake a fundamental review of
discrimination and legislation in Great Britain, and bring forward
proposals for a clearer and more streamlined equality legislation
framework, which produces better outcomes for those who experience
disadvantage. In addition the independent Equalities Review will
(among other things) inform the contents of the Single Equality Bill
-
The Single
Equality Bill will bring together nine major pieces of
discrimination law and up to 100 ancillary pieces of legislation
-
The government
has recently published a consultation paper setting out their
proposals for a Single Equality Bill for Great Britain. The
consultation paper is available at the following website address:
www.communities.gov.uk/pub/244/AFrameworkforFairnessConsultation_id1511244.pdf
or in paper form from communities.twoten.com
Sexual Orientation Regulations
-
The Government has brought forward legislation to tackle
discrimination in the provision of goods, facilities and services on
grounds of sexual orientation, which came into force on 30th April
2007
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The
consultation on these issues was extensive; there were almost 3,000
responses. As a result, the Government decided to extend the period
for considering the many views expressed on this complex issue by
five months, but committed to bring the Regulations into force in
April, at the same time as the new protections on grounds of
religion or belief
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The
Government published its response to the consultation “Getting
Equal” and laid before Parliament Regulations to prevent
discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation in the provision
of goods, facilities, services, premises and in the exercise of
public functions on 7th March 2007. The Regulations were
debated and approved in the House of Commons and House of Lords on
15 March and 21 March respectively
-
This legislation is a major step forward in ensuring dignity,
respect and fairness for all. These measures will help tackle the
practical barriers and real, everyday problems faced by lesbian, gay
and bisexual people
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