The Gender Equality Duty includes:
- A general duty on public sector bodies to promote equality and prevent unlawful discrimination.
- Specific duties for Scottish public sector bodies to:
- Publish a gender equality scheme
- Assess the impact of policies and practices on both women and men
- Set gender equality objectives, plan and take action to achieve these
- Report annually and review progress every 3 years.
In practice this means:
Policies that result in gender inequality should be re-examined and revised in light of the Gender Equality Duty.
Public sector bodies have the opportunity to lead by example – pushing forward changes in public service provision and employment practices.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission have further details on the Gender Equality Duty, including differences between Scotland, England and Wales.
The general Gender Equality Duty was not substantially altered under the new Equality Act 2010, which brings together all the equality duties – current and new (e.g. age, religion) – under one Act. The main provisions of the Equality Act came into force in October 2010, and the public sector integrated Equality Duty (with which we are mainly concerned) came into effect from April 2011. The Scottish Government is responsible for setting the specific duties for public sector bodies in Scotland, including for example, reporting requirements.
