Public and Commercial Services Union

The Race Relations Amendment Act 2000 was enacted in the wake of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry to formally recognise and tackle the problems of institutional racism.

It should be recognised that organisational practices, structures, policies which result in ethnic minorities being treated unfairly and less equally, often without intention or knowledge.

A key point emanating from the Macpherson Inquiry into the death of Stephen Lawrence was that a ‘colour blind’ approach, ie, applying the same rules to everyone regardless of race, was failing to recognise and address the disadvantages suffered by ethnic minorities.

A duty to eliminate race discrimination

The Race Relations Amendment Act 2000 places a duty on most public authorities to eliminate race discrimination, promote equality of opportunity and good relations between all racial groups.

The aim is to promote racial equality by helping public authorities provide fair and accessible services and in addition, improve and provide equal employment opportunities for all racial groups.

The two major components of legislative framework to assist public authorities in complying with their new obligations as introduced by the Race Relations Amendment Act 2000, are what are known as the ‘general duty’ and the specific duties.

The general duty

The new general duty for the first time requires public authorities to proactively challenge and eliminate racism in the workplace and in the way public authorities deliver public services.

This means that in every thing a public authority does in relation to the delivery of public services and employment duties a public authority has to:

• Eliminate unlawful racial discrimination
• Promote equality of opportunity
• Promote good race relations

The objective of the duty is to make the promotion of racial equality central to the work of public authorities.

The general duty also expects public authorities to take the lead in promoting equality of opportunity and good race relations, and prevent unlawful discrimination.

Specific duties

The specific duties help public authorities meet the general duty. They are a tool to be used to achieving the general duty under the act. This means that they set the absolute minimum steps an authority can do to meet the general duty.

Policy and service delivery

Under the specific duties, authorities have to identify the functions and policies – including informal policies/practices that have implications for race relations in terms of meeting the general duty.

Policies and services that impact on race relations have to be reviewed every 3 years.

May 2005 was the first year that authorities had to undertake this review.

Public authorities covered by the act are required to produce a Race Equality Scheme.

The Race Equality Scheme must set out the arrangements the public authorities intends to use to:

• Assess whether their functions and policies are relevant to race equality
• Monitor their policies to see how they affect race equality
• Assess and consult on policies they are proposing to introduce
• Publish the results of their consultations, monitoring and assess-ments
• Ensure the public have access to the information and services they provide
• Train the staff on the new duties

Employment

Most public authorities must also monitor their employment procedures and practices. This means they must monitor by ethnic group and gender:

• Staff in post
• Applicants for employment, promotion and training

In addition where a public authority has 150 or more full time staff they are also required to monitor by ethnicity, gender staff who:

• Receive training
• Benefit or suffer a detriment as a result of performance assessment
• Are involved in grievance procedures
• Are subject to disciplinary procedures
• Cease employment

The results of monitoring must be published each year. Monitoring is not just a matter of collecting data.

The information must be analysed for patterns of disparity of outcomes/treatment between ethnic groups and an action plan must be drawn up indicating what the authority intends to do to positively eliminate the disparities identified.

Monitoring is a means of measuring whether the workforce is representative of the wider community, as well as ensuring that no particular group of workers is adversely and disproportionately affected by any policy or procedure – whether they are formal or informal.

PCS believes that the Race Relations Amendment Act 2000 provides a framework to enable tangible progress on race equality in the public sector. However legislation alone will not achieve improvements in eliminating race discrimination.

The 1976 Race Relations Act has been in force for over 30 years and yet discrimination is rife. In some contexts, it is even worse as often in the workplace racism is not overt, but subtle, making it difficult to combat/eliminate.

The ‘Ethnic Minorities Taskforce’ report, demonstrates that black workers are still poorly represented in the workplace and face high levels of discrimination and harassment.

The trade union response

If trade unionists are to make progress in the work place in the goal to eliminate unlawful racial discrimination, proactive action needs to take place in representing the views of black members and negotiating on their behalf.

Defending public services, service users and black workers

Whilst public authorities have legal obligations/duties under the amended Race Relations Act 1976 (amended by the Race Relations Act 2000 and the Race Directive 2003), it is clear that legislation alone will not improve the lives of black workers and fellow trade unionists.

PCS believes that high quality public service delivery and good employment practices go hand in hand.

Public authorities are the largest employer of black people. Public authorities often recruit from local labour markets.

This means that members of the workforce are also service uses and public authorities have a big impact on local communities in the way services are delivered.

All public authorities are obliged to draw up race equality schemes, demonstrating how public services are delivered to service users, ie, the general local community and the black minority ethnic communities in particular.

In defence of public services, including public service jobs, branches should be concerned with the employer’s employment duties accrued under the Race Relations Amendment Act 2000. The policy and service provision duties of employers may impact on the way services are delivered and therefore on the way jobs are done.