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The Equality Act 2010
4 October 2010
The Equality Act, which came into force on 1 October 2010,
provides a new legislative framework to protect the rights of
individuals and advance equality of opportunity for all. The Act
simplifies and brings into one Act existing discrimination law. It
also introduces additional protections in a number of areas ranging
from the use of hypothetical comparators in equal pay claims to
reversing the impact of the Malcolm decision in Disability
Discrimination. All practitioners need to be familiar with the new
language and concepts utlisied in the legislation and be aware of
key new principles.
Provisions which came into force on 1 October
2010:
- The basic framework of protection against direct and indirect
discrimination, harassment and victimisation in services and public
functions; premises; work; education; associations, and
transport
- Changing the definition of gender reassignment, by removing the
requirement for medical supervision
- Levelling up protection for people discriminated against
because they are perceived to have, or are associated with someone
who has, a protected characteristic
- Applying the European definition of indirect discrimination to
all protected characteristics
- Extending protection from indirect discrimination to
disability
- Introducing a new concept of “discrimination arising from
disability”, to replace protection under previous legislation lost
as a result of Malcolm
- Harmonising the thresholds for the duty to make reasonable
adjustments for disabled people
- Extending protection from 3rd party harassment to all protected
characteristics
- Making it more difficult for disabled people to be unfairly
screened out when applying for jobs, by restricting the
circumstances in which employers can ask job applicants questions
about disability or health
- Allowing hypothetical comparators for direct gender pay
discrimination
- Making pay secrecy clauses unenforceable
- Introducing new powers for employment tribunals to make
recommendations which benefit the wider workforce
- Harmonising provisions allowing voluntary positive action
Provisions the Government is still
considering:
- The Socio-economic Duty on public authorities
- Dual discrimination
- Gender pay gap information
- Positive action in recruitment and promotion
To find out more about the Act and its implications,
download our full summary
of the Equality Act 2010 from our recent seminar.
The download in this page will require Adobe Reader, if you do
not have this installed, please click on the link below to visit
Adobe's website:
If you experience any difficulty in accessing these resources
please contact Richard Morley on 0115 976 6124 or rmorley@brownejacobson.com.
talk to us
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The content of this bulletin is provided for the purposes of
general interest and information. It contains only brief summaries
of aspects of the subject matter and does not provide comprehensive
statements of the law. It does not constitute legal advice and does
not provide a substitute for it.