The Public Sector
Public bodies, such as local councils and hospitals, provide a range of services to a large number of people. The Equality Act contains particular rules which require public bodies to think about how their policies and services deliver equal treatment and equal opportunities for everybody.
The Act replaces three different equality duties in previous law with a single Equality Duty on public bodies. This requires public bodies to think about how different people will be affected by the decisions they make and the services they deliver so that they are appropriate and accessible to all and meet different people’s needs.
The Act also contains a new socio economic duty requiring some public bodies to think about how their activities affect the most disadvantaged people, but the Government has announced that it does not intend to implement this measure.
Tell us what you think should happen to these measures and why, being specific where possible
- Should we scrap them altogether?
- Could their purpose be achieved in a non-regulatory way (eg through a voluntary code?) How?
- Could they be reformed, simplified or merged? How?
- Can we reduce their bureaucracy through better implementation? How?
- Can we make their enforcement less burdensome? How?
- Should they be left as they are?
There are to many chiefs in local government. I used to work for my local council and once 5 (yes 5) managers from one department spent quite some time discussing who should be employed to clean gutters on a museum. You couldn’t make it up.Comment Tags: Council wasting money