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NEWS


Equality Act comes into force

New legislation designed to strengthen and unify equalities law came into force this month in England, Scotland and Wales.

The Equality Act 2010 harmonises the complex patchwork of anti-discrimination legislation and introduces a number of important changes to equalities law.

Among these changes is a new Equality Duty, a key part of the Act, on public sector institutions, including schools and colleges, which will include a requirement to publish publicly available data on their performance on equality. This is likely to include information on the diversity of their workforce and the steps being taken to eliminate discrimination within the organisation.

This new Equality Duty, which comes into force in April 2011, will also extend existing requirements for public bodies to promote gender, race and disability equality to age, religion and belief, sexual orientation and gender reassignment.

The NASUWT has long-standing concerns that the existing public sector duties have not been effectively enforced but has serious reservations over the revised duty which removes the requirement to consult trade unions, train staff on equalities and involve staff and service users in implementing the duty. There is a risk, the Union believes, that much of the good practice presently operating in the public sector, much of it trade union-led, will be lost as a result.

The new law introduces new provisions outlawing the use of pre-appointment medicals or health questionnaires by employers seeking to weed out job applicants on health grounds. The changes are designed to prevent employers discriminating against applicants with disabilities or health problems. Employers are still allowed to seek medical information during the selection process, but only in limited circumstances.

Up to the point of offering of a job, an employer can only ask health-related questions to decide whether an applicant can carry out a function that is essential to the job or to be able to make reasonable adjustments.

Despite calls from the trade union movement, the Act fails to introduce any legal measures to tackle the persistent gender pay gap. Despite recent research suggesting it will take 57 years for women’s pay to equal that of their male colleagues, the Conservative Party declared before the General Election that, if elected, it would not bring into effect regulations proposed in the Act that would require large and medium-sized employers to publish information about gender pay levels by 2013.

For more information on the new law: www.equalityhumanrights.com/legal-and-policy/equality-act.

Go online: www.nasuwt.org.uk/EqualityAct.


End the damaging deadlock

The current political impasse over education in Northern Ireland must urgently be resolved, the NASUWT has urged.

The deadlock is unsustainable at a time of impending budget cuts, the Union has stated in a letter to all political parties, which calls on politicians to agree a way forward on advancing the creation of the Education and Skills Authority (ESA).

ESA was due to take over the functions of the Education and Library Boards (ELBs) in January, with the aim of reducing bureaucracy within the education system. However, there is still no sign that the legislation necessary to bring ESA into being is any closer to being enacted.

Major cuts are likely to Northern Ireland’s education budget over the coming years and the NASUWT believes this makes it even more critical that politicians put political and historic differences to one side to deal with developing a sustainable and effective plan to support and strengthen the education system.

The Union was one of five teaching unions who co-signed the letter under the auspices of the Northern Ireland Teachers’ Council (NITC).

The need to resolve the impasse has been highlighted by figures released by the Northern Ireland Audit Office (NIAO) into the condition of school buildings and estates. These found that of £1.2 billion available for capital spending in the five years up to March 2010, £353 million was never spent, equivalent to 12.5% of the budget. Despite the underspend, the NIAO reports that there is a maintenance backlog equivalent to £900 per pupil in Northern Ireland’s schools.

The NASUWT believes that these figures demonstrate the need for politicians to commit to working constructively together to ensure that pupils and teachers are being properly served by a fully resourced and effectively managed education administration.

"Major cuts are likely to Northern Ireland’s education budget over the coming years...this makes it even more critical that politicians put political and historic differences to one side…"

For more information, go online: www.nasuwt.org.uk/TeachersPayNorthernIreland.