Interim equality progress report 2011-12
Background The Equality and Human Rights Commission (the Commission) routinely collates information disaggregated by protected characteristic about our services and our use of our legal powers. This includes equality information relating to: • • • •
Information, advice and guidance provided through our helpline, specialist legal helpline and website. Our grant funding programme. Legal casework, mediation/conciliation and interventions. Enforcement and compliance action.
We collate equality information in relation to service access and usage (and satisfaction) including complaints as well as the success rates and outcomes of the legal cases we support and enforcement action we take. We use this information to: •
•
•
Establish who is accessing our services to identify whether there is any under-representation for people with the different protected characteristics. Understand the needs of our service users and whether there is any disadvantage faced by people with the different protected characteristics. Benchmark our performance against organisations providing similar services to identify areas for improvement.
We also use equality information about our services when making decisions regarding any potential changes to them. This information is used as part of the consideration of the impact these changes may have on the different protected groups. This information is published in our annual equality progress reports, together with our equality priorities and improvement actions. Our next annual equality report covering 2011/12 will be published in September 2012. We have therefore prepared equality information relating to our services covering the period up to November 2011 in this 2011/12 interim equality and diversity progress report. 2
This information will be used to inform the development of our equality objectives to be published in April on our Equality and diversity page
Legal casework and litigation The Equality and Human Rights Commission (the Commission) has a unique set of legal powers. Our casework and litigation strategy sets out how we will use our casework, litigation and intervention powers to reinforce and extend the reach of equality and human rights legislation and protection. The cases we undertake assist us in meeting meet our objectives and achieving positive change with maximum and lasting impact. Under Section 28 of the Equality Act 2006 the Commission can provide legal assistance to individuals for legal equality cases. We also provide a specialist mediation/conciliation service for resolving complaints or disputes where an individual feels that they have been a victim of unlawful discrimination or harassment under Section 27 of the Equality Act 2006. The equality monitoring information in relation to cases the Commission has supported under Section 27 and Section 28 of the Equality Act 2006 is presented in Table 1.
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Table 1: Legal cases considered and assisted under Section 27 and Section 28 powers of the Equality Act 2006 by protected characteristic (April–November 2011) Protected characteristic case relates to
Considered for use of Section 27 or Section 28 power
Section 28 Assistance
Section 27 Mediation/Conciliation
Assisted
Not assisted
Referred
Concluded3
Age
1
0
0
0
0
Disability
41
4
3
21
23
Gender
9
1
1
1
0
Gender reassignment1
0
0
1
0
0
Marriage or civil partnership1
0
0
0
0
0
Multiple discrimination2
6
0
0
0
0
Other
1
0
0
0
0
Pregnancy or maternity1
0
0
0
0
0
Race
10
3
0
2
3
Religion or belief
2
0
0
0
1
Sexual orientation
5
2
0
0
0
Total
75
10
5
24
27
Note 1: Cases concerning the protected characteristics of pregnancy or maternity, gender reassignment, marriage or civil partnership were previously captured within the statistics for gender prior to disaggregation in April 2011. Note 2: If a case involved proceedings which related to more than protected characteristic, it is categorised as ‘multiple discrimination’. Note 3: This includes actual cases that were supported in previous years but only concluded in 2010/11.
This shows that the equality profile of the cases considered for assistance is not representative across all the protected characteristics, with over 55 per cent disability-related, 13 per cent related to race and 12 per cent related to gender.
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Our helpline is our main source for potential casework and the equality profile of those cases considered for assistance and/or mediation/conciliation is a reflection of the high level of disability-related calls (see Table 2 below). Our predecessor Commission, the Disability Rights Commission, also had a well-established mediation/conciliation service and as a result we continue to see a disproportionate representation of disability-related cases for mediation/conciliation. The Commission also operates as the complaints handling body responsible for dealing with complaints under Regulation (EC) 1107/2006. The Regulation concerns the rights of disabled persons and persons with reduced mobility when travelling by air. Where appropriate the Commission has provided legal assistance or access to conciliation. Over 80 per cent of enquiries received that result in referral to the mediation/conciliation service relate to issues concerning access to goods, facilities, services or air travel. Most of those concern the protected characteristic of disability.
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Table 2: The protected characteristic of individuals who were considered for legal assistance or mediation/conciliation (April–November 2011) Protected characteristic
Considered for legal assistance or mediation/conciliation
Age
under 16
Declaration rate too low to report
Age
16-39
17
Age
40-64
11
Age
65-79
Declaration rate too low to report
Disabled person
40
Gender: Female
42
Gender: Male
34
Transgender person
Declaration rate too low to report
Marriage or civil partnership
Not collected
Pregnancy or maternity
Not collected
Race
Declaration rate too low to report
Religion or belief
Declaration rate too low to report
Sexual orientation
Declaration rate too low to report
We recognise the need to improve the quality of some of our equality monitoring data. This data is currently collated during the callers contact with the helpline service. We are in the process of making improvements to the collation of this information. We will also consider whether we can improve the quality of the original data by addressing gaps or omissions during any subsequent contact with the individual receiving assistance.
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The Commission also intervenes in human rights and equality cases taken by others, particularly at appellate level including in the European Court of Human Rights. The Commission intervenes in public interest cases where it believes it can add value for the court and help achieve progress in the development or interpretation of human rights or equality law. During April to November 2011 there were eight ongoing interventions. Three of these related to human rights issues, two were equality and human rights issues, one related to the Public Sector Equality Duty, one related to the protected characteristic of disability and one related to the protected characteristic of gender.
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Provision of legal specialist advice line The Commission provides a specialised advisory service to trade union representatives and Citizen Advice Bureau advisers on legal claims offering advice and guidance around: •
• •
the implications of the law and legal developments for the individual being advised or represented with a legal claim completing legal processes and procedures and framing legal arguments to maximise the potential for a successful outcome the potential for Commission funding on the case.
Table 3: Number of enquiries to the specialist advisers’ helpline by the protected characteristic the case related to Protected characteristic case related to
2011/12 to Nov 2011
Age
1
2
4
Disability
12
56
81
Gender
6
41
64
Gender reassignment1
0
0
0
Marriage or civil partnership1
0
0
0
Multiple discrimination issue2
3
9
13
Pregnancy or maternity1
0
0
0
Race
0
3
19
Religion or belief
0
0
1
Sexual orientation
1
7
2
Total
23
118
184
8
2010/11
2009/10
Note 1: Cases concerning the protected characteristics of pregnancy or maternity, gender reassignment, marriage or civil partnership were previously captured within the statistics for gender prior to disaggregation in April 2011. Note 2: If a case involved proceedings which related to more than protected characteristic, it is categorised as multiple discrimination.
Due to the low level of calls received by the specialist advice helpline it is not possible to draw any statistically significant conclusions.
Grant funding The Commission has the power to allocate funding to other organisations to help them in projects and work that promotes equality, human rights and good relations. In 2008/09 we invited applications from voluntary and other sector organisations for a three year grants programme which was launched in 2009/10. Awards were made to 61 organisations under our strategic grants programme. Since then we have not made any new awards. By the end of 2011/12, there will only be 33 organisations who have not completed their grant funding period and these all end in January 2013. Table 4 below shows the breakdown of grant funding by protected characteristic. This highlights that in 2012/13 the greatest proportion of our funding is in relation to work supporting cross-mandate issues (30 per cent) followed by race (25 per cent) and disability (15 per cent). With the government announcement of the cessation of funding for our grants programme there will be no opportunity to award additional grants to address any imbalance.
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Table 4: Comparative breakdown of grant funding by mandate area Mandate area Age Cross-mandate
2008/09 13 (5%) 73 (25%)
2009/10 4 (7%) 26 (42%)
2012/13 2 (6%) 10 (30%)
Disability Gender Human rights Other
16 (6%) 14 (5%) 14 (5%) 66 (23%)
7 (11%) 11 (18%) 1 (2%) n/a
5 (15%) 4 (12%) 1 (3%) n/a
Race 66 (23%) Religion and belief 9 (3%)
7 (11%) 1 (2%)
8 (25%) 0
Sexual orientation Gender reassignment
14 (5%)
3 (5%)
3 (9%)
N/A
1 (2%)
0
Total
285
61
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Provision of a helpline service We run a national helpline service across England, Scotland and Wales offering advice and information to anyone who wants to know more about their rights or responsibilities in relation to equality and human rights. We monitor and collate equality information around both the nature of calls to our helpline service as well as the equality profile of callers, where provided. This helps provide us with information on what the current discrimination and human rights challenges are as well as identifying potential strategic test cases. In 2011/12 we strengthened our monitoring to collect information around the protected characteristics of pregnancy and maternity and marriage and civil partnership. This information is shown in Table 5 and 6 below.
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Table 5: Nature of enquiries to the helpline service by protected characteristic Protected characteristic Percentage of calls to the helpline of the nature of the 2009/10 2010/11 2011/12 enquiry April to October Age 2% 3% 3% Disability
53%
47%
50%
Gender
8%
7%
6%
Gender reassignment
<1%
<1%
<1%
General enquiries and multiple strand1
15%
25%
14%
Human rights
6%
6%
10%
Marriage and civil partnership
Not collected
Not collected
<1%
Pregnancy and maternity
Not collected
Not collected
2%
Race
14%
10%
12%
Religion or belief
1%
1%
2%
Sexual orientation
<1%
<1%
<1%
Note 1: Cases concerning the protected characteristics of pregnancy or maternity, gender reassignment, marriage or civil partnership were previously captured within the statistics for gender prior to disaggregation in April 2011.
The majority of calls received by our helpline are in relation to disability (50 per cent), followed by race (at 12 per cent) and gender (6 per cent). At the end of each call our helpline advisers invite the caller to complete an equality monitoring form. Table 6 below shows the protected characteristic of helpline callers who chose to disclose this information. This represents approximately 5 per cent of callers. We recognise the need to improve the quality of monitoring data around the profile of callers and a number of improvement actions are planned to address this, including guidance and training for our helpline advisers.
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Our evidence tells us that: â&#x20AC;˘ females are more likely to call our helpline than males, 62 per cent and 38 per cent respectively â&#x20AC;˘ 5 per cent of our calls are from 16 to 24 year olds and 5 per cent are received from the over 65 age group â&#x20AC;˘ 79 per cent of calls are received from White ethnic group followed by Black/Black British at 9 per cent and 7 per cent Asian/Asian British; the Chinese ethnic group are least likely to use our helpline service at1 per cent. The government has decided to commission a new service for the provision of information, advice and support. Going forward the Commission will continue to analyse information from the helpline to inform our regulatory work but will not deliver the helpline service ourselves.
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Table 6 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Protected characteristic of helpline callers Protected characteristic
Number of callers
Age 16-24
196
25-34
745
35-44
1166
45-54
1094
55-64
557
65+
208
Disability Disabled person
2484
Gender reassignment Transgender person
23
Marriage or civil partnership Data not collected Pregnancy or maternity Data not collected Race Asian/Asian British
275
Black/Black British
367
Chinese/Other
55
Mixed
125
White
3068
Religion or belief Buddhist
34
Christian
1836
Hindu
59
Jewish
28
Muslim
148
Sikh
33
Other religion
134 13
Protected characteristic
Number of callers
No religion
1522
Prefer not to say
12
Sex Female
2435
Male
1483
Sexual orientation Bisexual
30
Gay man
100
Gay woman/Lesbian
37
Heterosexual/Straight
3515
Other
26
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Provision of information, advice and guidance: our website One of our key roles is to provide advice and guidance on rights, responsibilities and good practice, based on equality and human rights law. The Commissionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s website is one way in which we provide information, advice and guidance to both individuals and organisations. We capture information about the equality profile of our website users by inviting them to complete a monitoring form alongside their feedback. This data is non-attributable. The number of website visitors who have chosen to provide equality monitoring data is relatively low compared to the overall number of visitors to the website. As a result there is not enough data to provide meaningful analysis of feedback from representative groups. The Commission recognises the need to strengthen information about who uses our website and have identified a number of actions to improve both the declaration rates and quality of information. This will include awareness-raising of the reasons why we are collecting this information and how we will use it to improve the reach of our information, advice and guidance. In summer 2010, alongside a programme of usability testing, we ran a survey on our website. This helped us learn more about our website users and their needs, and about the strengths and weaknesses of our website. The survey was drafted in line with government guidance for measuring user satisfaction: TG126 Measuring Website Quality (COI). Over 80 users participated in the survey and the findings were used to inform the development and re-launch of our website. Participants were asked to provide equality monitoring information of which 85 per cent responded. The results are presented in Table 7.
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Table 7: Equality monitoring data provided by participants of the survey Protected characteristic of survey participant Age 16-24 25-44 45-59 60-74 75+ Gender Women Men Transgender status Same gender at birth Different gender at birth Prefer not to say Disability Disabled Not disabled Sexual orientation Straight/heterosexual Bisexual Gay/lesbian Other Ethnicity White English, Scottish, White British and White other Ethnic minority Religion/belief Christian, Church of England, Catholic and Protestant Latter Day Saints (Mormon) Sikh Agnostic, Atheist and no religion
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% 10% 32% 32% 23% 3% 51% 49% 91% 1% 8% 34% 66% 76% 3% 10% 11% 82% 18% 60% 2% 2% 36%
Satisfaction rates and complaints handling The Commission is committed to providing a high quality service to everyone we deal with. In order to do this we welcome feedback about our services. We recognise that quality of service is an important measure of our effectiveness and we have in place a complaints policy which enables us to resolve complaints as quickly as possible. We treat any complaint as an expression of dissatisfaction with our service which calls for a response. We listen to all complaints, treat them seriously, and learn from them so that we can continuously improve our service. Between April and October 2011 the Commission received 38 complaints in total. Of these: • • • • •
51 per cent related to our helpline service 26 per cent related to decision on our legal actions 9 per cent related to our responses to requests for information 8 per cent related to the Commission’s general strategy/policy, and 6 per cent related to our website.
Table 8 below shows the protected characteristic that the substantive complaint related to.
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Table 8: Number of complaints by protected characteristic Protected characteristic complaint relates to
Nov 2008– Mar 2009
Apr 2009–Mar 2010
Apr 2010– Mar 2011
Apr 2011– Nov 2011
Age
1
1
2
4
Disability
16
71
35
19
Gender
2
6
3
2
Gender reassignment
0
3
2
2
Marriage and civil partnership
0
0
0
0
Multiple discrimination
0
7
3
3
Pregnancy and maternity
0
0
0
0
Race
18
36
11
6
Religion or belief
0
3
1
2
Sexual orientation
0
1
1
0
Total
37
128
58
38
Overall the number of complaints the Commission receives is relatively low in comparison to the number of individuals and service users who have contact with the Commission. For example, to date this year the helpline service has handled almost 26,000 calls and there have been only 19 complaints about the service. In addition there has been a significant decline in the number of complaints received since April 2009 and the number of complaints upheld is extremely low as shown in Table 9. The highest proportion of complaints received this year relates to the protected characteristics of disability at 37 per cent and race at 16 per cent. However, given the low number of complaints and the statistical insignificance of the data no conclusions can be identified in relation to a particular protected characteristic.
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Table 9: Number of complaints received Nov 08–Mar 09
Apr 09 –Mar 10
Apr 10 –Mar 11
Mar 11–Nov 11
Complaint upheld
8
28
12
5
Not upheld
22
49
23
19
Partially upheld
5
26
20
9
N/A
0
2
3
3
19
Equality information on our regulatory activities The Commission's regulatory functions and powers are set out in the Equality Act 2006. For us, the purpose of regulation is to change behaviour in society and to prevent and stop unlawful actions through working with individuals and organisations in the public, private and voluntary sectors. The Commission is bound by the Hampton Code of Practice for Regulators, which outlines five principles of good regulation: proportionality, accountability, consistency, transparency and targeted. Our regulatory principles are set out in our business plan which can be found at: http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/legal-and-policy/ourregulatory-principles-and-objectives In autumn 2011 we piloted a new regulatory decision-making pathway. This was designed to ensure that all our regulatory decisions are systematically subjected to public interest/public value considerations and to increase the transparency of the decision-making. Equality monitoring was undertaken as an integral part of the pilot to enable us to identify if any action was required to widen the sources that result in an issue being considered for regulatory intervention and then ensure that the outcomes are fair across the different protected characteristics. Table 10 below shows the outcome of the decisions taken during the regulatory pathways pilot. Given that only 28 matters were considered, the information is statistically insignificant to draw any conclusions. As the pilot commenced in September 2011 and is still undergoing changes a more complete data set will be published later in the year with an analysis of the findings.
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Table 10 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Outcome of regulatory pathways decisions by protected characteristic Decision
Refer to LARPS
Option for enforcement or case work
Option for partnership working
1
1
Option for research project, inquiry or investigation
Further short investigation
No action but monitor
No Action
Total
1
1
5
9
2
1
0
3
Age Disability Gender Race
1
1
Religion or belief Sexual orientation
1
1
1
1
Gender reassignment Multiple strand
1
2
4
Not declared Total
2
2
4
0
21
7
1
1
1
1
9
1
2
3
4
9
28
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