Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000
New Laws for a Successful Multi-Racial Britain - Proposals for
Implementation, published 22 February 2001
How is the HE sector affected?
The Race Relations Amendment Act 2000 empowers the Home Secretary to extend
the list of public bodies in the original 1976 Act that are subject to the
general duty to promote race equality to include other bodies exercising
public functions.
It also empowers the Home Secretary (or Scottish Ministers where
appropriate) to impose specific duties on public bodies which are subject to
the general duty to promote race equality to ensure their better performance
of the general duty.
Public appointments
"The 2000 Act remedies an inconsistency regarding claims brought against
educational bodies. Under the 1976 Act, before a claim could be brought
against an educational body, a two-month notification to the Secretary of
State was necessary. This served as a cooling off period and also gave the
Secretary of State the opportunity to seek to resolve the dispute or to use
powers of direction under education legislation, to avoid resort to the
Courts. In practice it has not been as effective as originally envisaged
and, more often than not, it only served to delay a claimant's action."
Proposals for specific duties for educational establishments
"GB higher and further education institutions that are subject to the
general duty also have a central role to play in bringing about a fair and
just society. It is important that they too create and implement strategies
to prevent and address racism and that they ensure equality of access for
individuals irrespective of their background. We are proposing that each
such institution should have specific duties to:
a) prepare a written policy on race equality;
b) assess the impact of its policies on ethnic minority students and
staff;
c) monitor the recruitment and progress of ethnic minority students and
staff;
d) set out its arrangements for publishing its written policy, impact
assessments and and monitoring required at a), b) and c)."
Comments are invited by 15 May on the proposals regarding specific duties.
Codes of Practice
The 2000 Act allows the CRE to issue Codes of Practice in relation to any
aspect of the public sector duty to promote race equality (previously they
could only issue statutory codes in the fields of employment and training).
At this stage the CRE is intending to prepare six Codes of Practice - one of
these will cover educational bodies. The Codes of Practice will come into
force in November 2001.
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Fiona Waye
Policy Adviser
Email :[log in to unmask]
web :www.UniversitiesUK.ac.uk
Tel :+44(0)20 7419 4111
Fax :+44(0)20 7388 6256
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