The new Equality Act, 2010 came into force in October 2010. The main purpose of the Equality Act is to streamline and strengthen anti-discrimination legislation in Great Britain. It provides the legal framework that protects people, including disabled people, from discrimination. It brings together several pieces of anti-discrimination legislation into one single Act. The main pieces of legislation that have been brought together include:

• The Disability Discrimination Act 1995
• The Race Relations Act, 1976
• The Equality Act 2006 part 2T
• The Equality Act (sexual orientation) Regulations 2007
• The Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006
• The Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003
• The Employment Equality (Religion and Belief) Regulations 2003
• The Sex Discrimination Act 1995
• The Equal Pay Act 1970

The Equality Act ensure that the legal framework for equality law is more consistent for all people with protected characteristics, e.g. disability and gender.

By bringing together previous equality legislation the Act is intended to be easier to understand and work in practice.

In general the Equality Act carries forward the same protection as provided by the Disability Discrimination Act, however, there are some notable differences:

• The Disability Discrimination Act only provided protection from direct discrimination in the employment and related areas whilst the Equality Act 2010 protects disabled people against direct discrimination in areas beyond the employment field (such as the supply of goods, facilities and services)
• The Equality Act will provide improved protection from discrimination that occurs because of something connected with a person's disability
• The Equality Act introduces the principle of indirect discrimination for disability
• The Equality Act applies one trigger point at which there is a duty to make reasonable adjustments for disabled people. This trigger point is where a disabled person would be at a substantial disadvantage compared to a non-disabled person if the adjustment was not made
• The Equality Act extends protection from harassment that is related to disability previously, protection only applied in relation to work. The Equality Act applies this protection beyond work
• The Equality Act provides protection from direct disability discrimination and harassment where this is based on a person's association with a disabled person, or on a false perception that the person is disabled
• The Equality Act contains a new provision which limits the type of enquiries that a recruiting employer can make about disability and health when recruiting new staff. The provision will help prevent disabled applicants from being unfairly ruled out at an early stage of the recruitment process.

Definition of Disability

Under the Equality Act 2010 there are slight differences to the Disability Discrimination Act in how the legal definition of disability is defined. The Equality Act defines a disabled person as ‘someone who has a mental or physical impairment that has a substantial and long term adverse effect on the person's ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities'. Where the Disability Discrimination Act also required the disabled person to show that an adversely affected normal day-to-day activity involved one of a list of capacities such as mobility, speech or hearing, the Equality Act 2010 does not require this.

For further information and to download useful Guidance and Good Practice Guides you can visit:

www.equalityhumanrights.com

www.acas.org.uk

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