Sikhs

(asked on 20th December 2022) - View Source

Question

To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, whether the Government has sought legal advice on whether (a) public bodies and (b) decision makers fail in their equality duty if they are unable to establish the number of people who they employ or to whom they provide a service that have a Sikh ethnicity.


Answered by
Stuart Andrew Portrait
Stuart Andrew
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
This question was answered on 12th January 2023

The specific duties of the public sector equality duty apply to most public bodies in England, such as local authorities and schools; most public authorities operating across Great Britain, such as Government departments (except on devolved functions); and a small number of public bodies operating across one of the borders inside Great Britain. These duties also apply to decision-makers who are not public authorities but exercise public functions. Public bodies subject to the specific duties must publish information to show their compliance with the public sector equality duty. The information must include:

  • information relating to people who are affected by the public body’s policies and practices, such as service users, and who share protected characteristics;
  • and for public bodies with 150 or more employees, information relating to those of the public body’s employees who share protected characteristics.

The specific duties are intended to enable better performance of the public sector equality duty, but there is no requirement to hold or publish information to any particular level of detail. Similarly, there is no prescribed format. It is up to each public body to decide for itself what information it publishes. This will vary greatly depending on the size of the body, the range of functions it performs, and the extent to which those functions could affect equality.

However, public bodies and decision-makers who think that their decisions may affect discrimination, harassment, or victimisation of Sikhs, affect equality of opportunity between Sikhs and people of different ethnicity, or affect Sikhs’ relations with people of different ethnicity, should ensure that their compliance with the duty includes considerations of Sikh ethnicity.

Reticulating Splines