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Generic Equality Work
Policy
1 The
Equality act 2006 created the Equality and Human Rights
Commission with duties to promote understanding and good
practice on equality, diversity and human rights, promote
equality of opportunity between people in the different
groups protected by discrimination law, work towards the
elimination of unlawful discrimination and harassment, and
promote good relations between members of different groups
and between members of those groups and others in the wider
society. The Equality and Human Rights Commission opened on
1 October 2007, the day after the Commission for Race
Equality closed its doors on 31 September 2007.
2 The
decision to replace the CRE, dealing only with race, with
the generic EHRC, dealing with six major dimensions of
inequality as well as human rights, created anxiety and
speculation within race equality circles, over the future of
specialist regional and local race equality organisations,
such as REWM.
3 Some
former race equality councils have already transformed
themselves into generic or multi-strand equality bodies,
such as the Dudley Centre for Equality and Diversity.
4 There
is already pressure from public authorities and those
concerned with the future funding of voluntary sector race
equality organisations to explore the possibilities for
moving towards multi- strand equality arrangements at local
level.
5 They
regard it as desirable and inevitable that the economic
rationalisation and simplification that brought about the
EHRC will be reproduced in some form at local level.
6 Nevertheless, communities genrally remain
fractured along lines of social class, race, culture and, to
a lesser extent, religion. Community tension and conflict
continue overwhelmingly to be related to perceived
differences of colour, race, ethnicity, national origin and
religion. While considerations of age, gender, disability,
and sexual orientation may play a part in social exclusion
and isolation, the elderly, the young, women, disabled, and
LGBT alike, are members of all local residential
communities.
7 REWM
believes that in regard to functions relating to community
development, specialist race equality organisations should
continue to concentrate their efforts on race and religious
relations, which together with the social class differences
associated with them, are uniquely in need of attention and
intervention.
8 Race
equality organisations should consider very carefully any
decision to jettison their specialist work on promoting good
relations between racial groups, improving community
cohesion, and resolving conflict between different racial
and religious communities.
9 Race
equality organisations have a clear competitive advantage
over other agencies in the public, voluntary and community
sectors in promoting positive relations between ethnic
communities. The consequences of relinquishing this
advantage in favour of a less specific generic equality
approach need careful consideration.
10 Rights
and Equality West Midlands, while having no intrinsic
objection to broadening the remit of its work (and indeed
has long had an interest in promoting human rights more
generally), recognises that its specialist expertise and
experience lie in the field of race relations and community
conflict resolution. A need remains for these specialisms to
be embedded at local level.
11 REWM
belives that small, specialist voluntary sector race
equality organisations will find it difficult, if not
impossible, to acquire community development expertise in
equal measure across all strands of equality work, and that
they risk losing their competitive edge in their efforts to
do so.
12 A
helpful analogy is with a fruit orchard containing different
kinds of fruit tree: apples, pears, plums, apricots, hazel,
and chestnut. Each kind of tree requires a different kind
of husbandry: to produce the best fruit, they cannot be
treated alike, although they share the orchard in common,
and will all benefit from the general care and protection
given to it.
13 A
strong argument has been put, however, for specialist race
equality organisations to extend their casework arrangements
to deal with discrimination on grounds of race, age, gender,
disability, religion or belief, and sexual orientation.
14 Given
the symmetry between race, religion or belief, sex and
sexual orientation, employment law, this is a perfectly
feasible proposal. An extension of function along these
lines, however, raises questions about race equality
organisations’ specialist or niche status. If they were to
take on these other types of discrimination case, in what
way would their services differ from those of Citizens
Advice Bureaux and local law centres?
15 The
answer could lie in their specialising in discrimination
law, particularly in regard to employment. In recent years,
however, fewer REOs have offered legal information, advice,
guidance, and case work services, and less still,
resource-hungry Employment Tribunal (ET) representation.
16 Functions such as legal casework for complainants
of discrimination, are most susceptible to the adoption of a
multi-strand equality approach. Other functions in the area
of community support, such as the promotion of good
relations between racial groups, community bridge-building,
or the improvement of the health and quality of life of
minority ethnic communities, are special and unique to the
work of race equality organisations.
17
Ill-considered attempts to adopt a multi-strand equality
approach to these functions are likely to be
counterproductive and result in a deterioration of focus on
community cohesion and on the promotion of race equality,
the loss of much-needed specialist skills, and, possibly,
the eventual disappearence of specialist agencies able to
deal with specifically-ethnic conflict resolution. This
could have potentially disastrous consequences, leading to
the disappearence of independent agencies for ethnic
conflict resolution and for countering racist or violent
extremism. This is precisely the scenario which Northern
towns faced in 2001 and were criticised for.
18 Put
more directly, unless the unique contribution of REOs to
race equality and inter-ethnic community cohesion is
recognised, the creation of the EHRC, with its emphasis on
rationalising the framework of discrimination law, together
with uncritical attempts to emulate and reproduce structures
like it at local level, could result in the neglect and
eventual collapse of the unique, organically-developed, and
socially invaluable local race equality movement.
19 Nevertheless, there is still considerable scope
for creatively, but cautiously, exploring the potential for
expanding the
boundaries
of our current work and for regarding multi-strand
approaches to equality promotion as opportunities rather
than threats.
21 Rights
and Equality West Midlands intends to develop guidance to
assist race equality organisations adjusts to the new era of
the Equality and Human Rights Commission without incurring
loss of purpose, function, or community support in the
process.
22
We shall attempt to develop a mutually-supportive
partnership with our new national strategic body, the Equality and Human Rights
Commission, and to advise it on the grass-roots needs of
the race equality movement.
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