“Unnecessary Burdens” in the Equality Act?

BIS has published the “Fifth Statement of New Regulations” setting out the timetable for a number of measures which will be implemented in 2013.

 

This will include “removing unnecessary burdens from the Equality Act”, which specifically means removing employers’ potential liability for harassment by a third party and removing the statutory questionnaire procedure. These changes will be implemented in March 2013.

 

The report openly acknowledges that the ‘new culture’ (which presumably means the ‘red tape challenge’) “has resulted in real benefits to businesses”. Well it certainly is of no benefit to workers!

 

This government is eroding employment rights at an unprecedented pace. It has recently announced that it will be halving the consultation period for collective redundancies (of 100 or more employees) from 90 days to 45 days, making it easier to sack employees. It has already changed the required period of service to be able to claim unfair dismissal from 1 year to 2 years, again making it easier to sack people.

 

It has also announced that it intends to proceed with the ridiculous proposal of ‘employee ownership’, despite 92% of responses to its own consultation expressing concerns about the plans.

 

Fortunately, discrimination law is one area that cannot as easily be hit, as most rights are obtained from Europe, but sure enough where rights can be reduced without being in breach of EU requirements, they are being.

 

These two changes will make pursuing a claim more complicated and difficult, meaning ultimately that wronged employees will be put off pursuing a claim.

 

In particular, the removal of the questionnaire procedure will make it even more difficult to prove equal pay cases and indirect discrimination claims, as the questionnaire process was invaluable in obtaining essential information about company statistics and comparators. The government has said that employees will still be able to ask questions in correspondence, but without the threat of an inference of discrimination if there is a failure to reply, how many employers are likely to voluntarily give the requested information? Not many!

 

Toni Haynes - Solicitor

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