Equality Act 2010: Public Sector Equality Duty Draft Regulations Published

The Government has confirmed that the new public sector Equality Duty will be brought into force on schedule on 6 April 2011.  The new Duty will ensure that public bodies embed equality considerations into their day to day work. This duty now extends beyond race, disability and gender to cover age, sexual orientation, religion or belief and gender reassignment in full.  New draft regulations have been published following the consultation in autumn 2010, setting out new specific duties which strip away process requirements and instead focus on increasing transparency and democratic accountability. The Government will be laying the draft regulations before Parliament for debate shortly.

The draft regulations are available here.