New rights for million of carers

The first of October 2010 will be marked as a historical day for UK carers. Thanks to Equality Act 2010, millions of unpaid carers gained new rights; they cannot be directly discriminated against or harassed because they are caring for disabled people.

The Equality Bill introduces four important new opportunities for carers:

• Socio-economic disadvantage
Clause 1 requires public authorities to have due regard to socio- economic disadvantage when exercising strategic planning functions.

• Associative discrimination
The Bill recognises the concept of ‘associative’ discrimination in relation to disabled
people – and widens the impact of the Coleman decision (clause 13 of the Bill) to make unlawful such discrimination, not only in relation to a person’s employment, but also in relation to goods, services, housing and other fields.

• Indirect discrimination
The Bill contains an explicit provision relating to indirect discrimination and disabled
People (clause 19) – which is not found in the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. Indirect discrimination occurs where an apparently neutral provision, criterion or practice puts, or would put, people with a protected characteristic (i.e. due to disability or sex or race etc) at a particular disadvantage compared with other people, unless that provision, criterion or practice can be objectively justified as being a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. A problem with this formulation is that there is a need to establish a comparator – i.e. a person who has not got the protected characteristic, and would not be adversely affected. An example is a height restriction for people wanting to enter the police force. This was neutral (i.e. it affected men and women alike) but because women are generally shorter than men, this provision adversely affected more of them than men.

• Impact assessments
The Bill (clause 145) extends the current duty on public bodies – such as local authorities and the NHS – to ensure that their policies and practices do not have an adverse impact on disabled (and other) persons. This duty is not merely negative: it includes an obligation to ensure that policies and practices are designed to eliminate discrimination, harassment and victimisation and to advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations. This includes an obligation to consider the impact of their policies and practices because of the concept of ‘associative’ discrimination.

The text above was extracted from a briefing of the Equality Act 2010 provided by Carers UK and you can download it here.