The Equality and Human Rights Commission has announced on its website that while it was intending to produce further statutory codes of practice on the Public Sector Equality Duty, those plans have been scrapped as the Government feels further statutory guidance may be too much of a burden.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission has announced that it is no longer able to proceed with its plans to produce further statutory codes of practice on the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED). The Government is keen to reduce bureaucracy around the Equality Act 2010, and feels that further statutory guidance may place too much of a burden on public bodies. Although the Commission has powers to issue codes, it cannot do so without the approval of the Secretary of State, as it is reliant upon Government to lay codes before parliament, in order for them to be statutory.
It is the Commission’s view that, rather than creating a regulatory burden, statutory codes have a valuable role to play in making clearer to everyone what is and is not needed in order to comply with the Equality Act. However, as this is no longer an option, it feels the best solution is to issue its draft codes as non statutory codes instead. These non statutory codes will still give a formal, authoritative, and comprehensive legal interpretation of the PSED and education sections of the Act and will make it clear to everyone what the requirements of the legislation are.
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