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“ …we must be very clear about why it’s so important that public services in particular do not discriminate and its simply because the public services are the window to the state. If people from minority ethnic communities are treated worse, get worse service from the public services it means the state is failing and its failing its citizens.” 32 Each jurisdiction also has anti-discrimination legislation in place. In 1997 the Race Relations (Northern Ireland) Order was introduced which made it unlawful to discriminate on racial grounds in five areas including employment and training, education, provision of goods and services, facilities or services, disposal and management of premises and advertisements. In addition, the Race Relations Order set out the principle duties for the Commission of Racial Equality in Northern Ireland, since 2000 incorporated into the Equality Commission. The Equality Commission has published guidelines for public authorities many of which have introduced race relation policies. 32_Rob Berkeley, Runnymede Trust, UK, speaking at the conference. 33_They do not apply to acts of discrimination on grounds of colour or nationality; these grounds are covered in the original Race Relations Act and they remain unchanged; however there has been concern around this omission in the amended legislation. In Ireland, the Employment Equality Act 1998 prohibits discrimination in relation to employment on nine distinct grounds – gender, marital status, family status, sexual orientation, religion, age, disability, race (including nationality) and membership of the Traveller community. The Equal Status Act 2000 prohibits discrimination (with some exceptions) in the disposal of goods to the public, the provision of services or of accommodation to the public, in certain disposals of property, education, and advertising, on the same grounds as those included in the Employment Equality Act. However, the Equal Status Act does not include all areas of Government service provision, for example policing, and those services which are in scope are subject to certain exemptions, for example in relation to education. The Equality Act 2004 amends a number of provisions of the Employment Equality Act 1998 and the Equal Status Act 2000, to give effect to EU Council Directives, which will be described below. The Scotland Act 1998 which established the Scottish Parliament defines equal opportunities as: “ the prevention, elimination or regulation of discrimination between persons on grounds of sex or marital status, on racial grounds, or on grounds of disability, age, sexual orientation, language or social origin, or of other personal attributes, including beliefs or opinions, such as religious beliefs or political opinions.” The Scottish Parliament recognises the need to promote equal opportunities for all as a key principle in its operation and its appointments. Equality legislation is a matter reserved to the UK Government and the legislation that applies in Scotland is the UK legislation. The Race Relations Act 1976 makes it unlawful to discriminate on the grounds of colour, race, nationality (including citizenship), or ethnic or national origin in employment, education, housing and the provision of goods, facilities and services. The Act offers protection from direct discrimination, indirect discrimination and victimisation. The Race Relations Act 1976 (Amendment) Regulations 2003 (‘the Race Regulations’) incorporated an EU Directive and offers stronger protection from racial discrimination and harassment. 33 Other legislation relevant to criminal offences will be described in each case study under the heading of “policing”.
improving government service delivery to minority ethnic groups Chapter 1: Context 28_29 34_Article 1(4). 35_Article 1. 36_Butler, F. (2005), Improving Public Services: Using a Human Rights Approach, Institute for Public Policy Research. 37_McCrudden, C. (1986), Rethinking Positive Action, Industrial Labour Journal, p.219. 38_Chaney, P & T. Rees (2004), The Northern Ireland Section 75 Duty: An International Perspective. Paper presented to the Section 75 Equality Duty – An Operational Review Conference, Belfast. 39_www.cre.gov.uk/duty/ pa_specific_schemes.html Overview of the role of positive duties There has been an understanding for some time that in order to address inequality, proactive steps may be needed; this has sometimes been described as ‘positive action’. At an international level, this concept was embedded in 1969 by the UN International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD): “ Special measures taken for the sole purpose of securing adequate advancement of certain racial or ethnic groups or individuals requiring such protection as may be necessary in order to ensure such groups or individuals equal enjoyment or exercise of human rights and fundamental freedoms shall not be deemed racial discrimination...” 34 Although as is clear from this Article, ‘special measures’ were not necessarily being advocated, rather they were being protected and differentiated from racial discrimination itself. At a European level, the EU Council Directive 2000/43/EC of 29th June 2000 implementing the principle of equal treatment between persons irrespective of racial or ethnic origin also allows Member States to take ‘positive action’ to compensate disadvantages suffered by a particular racial or ethnic group. Again, taking positive action is not required but rather allowed. However, the notion of ‘positive duties’ which are required of public authorities has been developing. For example, in relation to human rights, the European Convention on Human Rights requires that the Convention rights be “secured to everyone” 35 and the doctrine of ‘positive obligations’ is being developed by the Strasbourg Court and, increasingly, by UK courts. Therefore, public authorities are required as a matter of law to adopt a proactive rather than a reactive approach. 36 The concept of ‘positive duties’ is related to and yet distinct from the traditional concept of ‘positive action’. Various categories of positive action have been identified, one of which is ‘positive measures’ to eliminate discrimination, which means identifying and replacing discriminatory practices. 37 This approach does not necessarily involve ‘special treatment’ for disadvantaged groups, but understands historical disadvantage and exclusion; and therefore is not unlike the ‘positive duties’ concept described below. One of the first positive statutory duties, and perhaps the only one to be embedded in constitutional law, relates to public authorities in Northern Ireland and arises from Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998. Section 75 imposes a duty on specified public authorities to “have due regard to the need to promote equality of opportunity” across the nine equality strands and “to the desirability of promoting good relations between persons of different religious belief, political opinion or racial group”. It has been said that the Northern Ireland equality duty is “unique and pioneering” in mainstreaming equality and that in the future: “ …the unified yet multi-faceted approach to mainstreaming equality that is underpinned by S.75 will prove to have greater effectiveness than many contemporary approaches operating around the globe”. 38 The UK introduced a ‘positive duty’ for public authorities in 2001 in an amendment to the Race Relations Act. The specific duties introduced by the Race Relations Act came into full effect in Scotland on 30 November 2002. The Race Relations Act 1976 (Statutory Duties) Order 2001 set out the specific duty for public authorities to prepare and publish race equality schemes. 39 The duties on public authorities are to eliminate
Page 1: IMPROVING GOVERNMENT SERVICE DELIVE
Page 4 and 5: About this publication This is the
Page 6 and 7: One of the innovative elements of t
Page 8 and 9: CHAPTER 4: IRELAND RESEARCH FINDING
Page 11 and 12: Executive Summary 8_ title EXECUTIV
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Page 44 and 45: Demographics 78 Overview of Migrant
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Page 48 and 49: Methods A questionnaire was designe
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Page 52 and 53: Targeting For all organisations tas
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Page 62 and 63: Benchmarking The issue of data coll
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Chapter 3: Scotland Research Findin
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Demographics Until data from the fo
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Figure 8: PPSNs Poland 103,177 55%
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Prospects for ongoing strong immigr
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Both the Equal Employment Act 1998
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Methodology The NPAR will undoubted
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In hospitals the provision of inter
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Awareness of legislation and policy
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e expected to pay the non-EU fee, w
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Interviews carried out with employe
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Official agencies and policies in t
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Targeting The need to target ethnic
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Employment By and large Irish immig
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(continued from previous page) The
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An anti-racism intercultural progra
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Conclusions The Irish statutory sec
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Chapter 5: Conference Discussions 1
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and inequality and black and ethnic
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Understanding and tackling racism w
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As discussed above, there is a lack
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It is important that training on se
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- - - - - - - Existing UK migration
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“ …the four As that the previou
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Appendix 1: Research Project Struct
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Appendix 2: List of Organisations I
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Appendix 3: Recommended Data Collec
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Glossary 166_167 Glossary 267_Scott
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Acronyms 170_171 Acronyms280 280_In
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This research has been carried out
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