Equality Act comes into force today

Most of the provisions of the long-awaited Equality Act take effect from today.

Suzanne McMinn, HR Consultant for Workplace Law, said:

“The long-awaited Equality Act has now arrived after a difficult journey through changes in government manifestos and timeframes.  Employers will need to ensure that they are fully up to speed with the provisions that the new piece of legislation brings to make certain that they don't fall foul of the groundbreaking changes.”

The Act brings together nine pieces of legislation under a single banner. The Government says the aim is to simplify the law and reduce the administrative burden on businesses.

Key changes to the law being introduced today include:

Making pay secrecy 'gagging' clauses unenforceable

This will protect employees who choose to discuss their pay with each other for the purposes of uncovering discrimination.

Extra protection for disabled people

The new law restricts the circumstances in which employers can ask job applicants questions about disability or health prior to offering them a position, making it more difficult for disabled people to be unfairly screened out.

Smair Soor, a Barrister at 7 Bedford Row, said:

“The shift in the burden of proof will now mean employers cannot ask questions about a candidate's health at the pre job offer stage, unless there is a clear contextual justification.  If this did happen and a candidate was not successful, the onus will now fall on the employer to prove disability discrimination played no part in the hiring decision in any subsequent claim. This change in the law may very well lead to a rise in the number of disability discrimination claims.”

New powers for Employment Tribunals

Where an Employment Tribunal finds that an employer has discriminated against an employee, the Tribunal will be allowed to make recommendations that could affect the whole workforce – for example, calling for harassment policies to be more effectively implemented – instead of being restricted to measures that will benefit the employee who brought the action.

Extending protection from third party harassment to all protected characteristics

This means  employers have a responsibility to protect their staff, where possible, from harassment by customers.

Smair Soor said:

“Employers will have to be aware that they can now be sued by an employee for harassment imparted by a third party, such as a contractor or a client. There will be a ‘three strikes’ rule, where in the case of more than two incidents of harassment by a third party, the employer will be responsible unless it makes reasonable efforts to resolve the harassment. This change extends the realm of harassment beyond the immediate workplace. Questions may be raised of how the rather arbitrary figure of ‘three strikes’ has been reached.”

The Government says it will announce 'in due course' its plans for the remaining parts of the Equality Act not due to be implemented on 1 October.

These include:

• Positive action in recruitment and promotion;
• Dual discrimination; and
• Gender pay gap reporting.

ACAS has published a podcast explaining key changes under the new Equality Act.