Equality legislation

The Equality Act 2010

The Equality Act 2010 replaced, among others, the Disability Discrimination Act (the 'DDA') and also the Race Relations Act.

The Equality Act brings in protected characteristics as the grounds upon which discrimination is unlawful with respect to employment, education, training and the provision of goods and services.  The protected characteristics under the Act are:

• Age
• Disability
• Gender reassignment (under Transgender in Specific Equality Issues)
• Pregnancy and maternity (under Gender in Specific Equality Issues)
• Race
• Religion or belief
• Sex (under Gender in Specific Equality Issues)
• Sexual orientation
• Marriage and civil partnership (the Act applies only in terms of the need to eliminate discrimination in employment)

For more information, support and guidance around any of the areas covered by the protected characteristics visit our equality issues pages.

For a more detailed summary of the changes to the legislation and the implications for the University, including the definitions of the types of discrimination and specific issues relating to particular characteristics, refer to the Equality Act 2010 (PDF, 798KB) Summary - July 2011.

Public Sector Equality Duty

The Equality Act 2010 brought in a new Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) which consists of general and specific duties.  It became law on 5 April 2011.

The general duty covers all protected characteristics apart from marriage and civil partnership and has three aims.  It requires us as a higher education institution to have due regard to the need to:

• Eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation and other conduct prohibited by the Act. This means:
  • ensuring there is no less favourable treatment for protected groups
  • ensuring no factors give rise to indirect discrimination.
• Advance equality of opportunity between people from different groups.  This involves:
  • removing or minimising disadvantages suffered by people due to their protected characteristics
  • meet the needs of people with protected characteristics
  • encourage people from protected groups to participate in public life or in other activities where their participation is disproportionately low.
• Foster good relations between people from different groups.  This involves:
  • tackling prejudice
  • promoting understanding between people from different groups.

Having due regard means consciously thinking about the three aims of the general duty as part of the process of decision making.