24 April 2009
An Equality Bill promising equal life chances for all is imminent. But are such lofty ambitions achievable in an economic downturn when profits and budgets are being carefully guarded? Vivienne Russell asks whether the equality agenda is recession-proof
Is the financial crisis a feminist issue? Is the recession undermining hard-won gains on disability and race? There are so many contradictory trends at play right now that it’s hard to work out how much the economic downturn will exacerbate inequalities.
The first wave of recession seems to have mainly hit a male-dominated industry – construction. On the other hand, there are more women in the labour market than ever before. As they are often in low-paid, part-time jobs, they tend to be more vulnerable to redundancy than their male counterparts. Disabled people, too, can find themselves squeezed out of employment as soon as times get hard.
And with both private sector profits and public sector budgets under immense pressure, it seems that long-standing equal pay claims are not going to be settled any time soon. Word is that, at the heart of government, Equalities Minister Harriet Harman and Business Secretary Peter Mandelson are at loggerheads over just how far employers should be pushed on equal pay.
The recession struck just when it seemed good progress was finally being made on equality policies, due to culminate in the publication of the Equality Bill in the next few weeks. Consensus was emerging, at least in the public sector, on a new understanding of equality. The old pigeon holes of gender, race and disability were going out in favour of a more flexible generic definition of equality, based on equal life chances for all.
It was this new era that the Bill was meant to usher in, simplifying and streamlining the law. The shift was also captured in the equality framework issued by the Improvement and Development Agency last month.
But then the body charged with leading on all this seemed to lose its way. The Equality and Human Rights Commission was hit by a series of high-profile resignations and is still struggling to stay on message. Trade unions and equality campaigners alike were alarmed when the now outgoing chief executive, Nicola Brewer, said that equal pay reforms needed to be ‘realistic’ in the current financial climate.
Added to this sense of unease was the commission’s threat of legal action against local authorities deemed to offer inadequate support to women subject to sexual or domestic violence. The public sector, traditionally seen as the home of good practice on equality, suddenly looked less than brilliant.
So are we going backwards on equality? Are the dire economic circumstances diluting and distorting what was once solid policy?
The recession is affecting women in ways no previous downturn has, says Sarah Veale, head of equality and employment rights at the Trades Union Congress. Not only are there more women in the workforce than ever before, she tells Public Finance, but far more of them are either the sole breadwinner or earn more than their male partner. ‘So women are actually becoming quite significant in terms of income generation and purchasing power,’ she says.
Women who are not working will also be hit hard, according to equality campaigning group the Fawcett Society. ‘The recession will have a broader set of social and economic consequences that will unravel only slowly,’ said the society’s March report, Are women bearing the burden of the recession?.
Women are less well-equipped to be able to withstand the impact of the recession: they are more likely to live in poverty, have fewer financial assets, and, as mothers and carers, will often prioritise their family’s needs above their own.
This is no time, say campaigners, to put the brakes on the equality agenda. The New Local Government Network recently entered the fray, calling on the government to step up its efforts to create a more diverse workforce as a bulwark against the downturn.
NLGN deputy director Anna Turley tells PF: ‘The business case for having a diverse workforce is not a luxury that can be dispensed with in tough times, or a minority interest, but a strategic necessity for high-achieving organisations.
‘Good diversity policy is even more important in the economic downturn, when the public sector needs to harness the best talent that our society has to offer.’
There is clear evidence, she adds, that more diverse workforces can enhance innovation, productivity and staff morale. ‘This is particularly important in the public sector, where personalised, responsive, innovative services, which understand the diverse and complex needs of the local population, are essential.’
Angela Mason, national adviser for equality and diversity at the Improvement and Development Agency, agrees that equality issues will become more important as the recession takes hold, particularly in terms of public service provision.
‘There is a situation of scarce resources so I think local authorities will have to be transparent and tell a good story about how those resources are being used… It’s right that local authorities notice the impact of the recession in relation to different groups.’
The IDA has recently launched an equalities framework for local government, replacing the old equality standard. At its heart is a cross-cutting definition of equality that covers people who don’t fit into established categories, such as children in care and people with mental health problems.
Employing a modern and diverse workforce is an important performance element of the framework, but councils also need to consider who lives in their communities, what their needs are and whether these are being met. ‘It’s rather surprising that there hasn’t been an emphasis on who actually lives in this place, what their needs and aspirations are, and where the equality gaps are,’ Mason tells PF.
It was Mason who, when she ran the government’s Women and Equality Unit, put in place the architecture for the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which has looked in danger of imploding. The departure of chief executive Nicola Brewer was announced a few days after her equal pay gaffe and since then the commission has been hit by one bad news story after another. Commissioner Kay Hampton, professor of community and race relations at Glasgow Caledonian University and the last chair of the now defunct Commission for Racial Equality, resigned. Soon after, another commissioner, the former Disability Rights Commission chair Sir Bert Massie, announced that he too was seriously considering his position, reportedly unhappy with the direction the commission was taking under chair Trevor Phillips.
The equality watchdog has faced a huge challenge in bringing together the work of the former Equal Opportunities Commission, Commission for Racial Equality and Disability Rights Commission — as well as taking on the new equality strands of age, faith, sexuality and transgender issues. It will also have to oversee the government’s plans to replace the current three equality duties of the public sector, which cover gender, race and disability, with one single duty incorporating all seven equality strands. The new duty is due to come into effect into 2011.
Some equality watchers privately believe the commission’s current woes can be put down to clashing personalities and priorities as the senior representatives of the different equality strands compete for attention and resources. Whatever the truth of it, such leadership wrangles serve only as an unnecessary distraction as the economy deteriorates.
On equal pay, the commission has been at pains to try to clear up the mess left by Brewer, emphasising that its suggestions on the reform of equal pay legislation ahead of the Equality Bill were sensible and practical and not motivated by financial considerations.
‘Fairness and a strong economy are two sides of the same coin, they are not in opposition to one another,’ says Andrea Murray, the commission’s head of policy. ‘What is true is that we believe that the present approach to achieving equal pay – and the Equal Pay Act – needs radical reform. The solutions are complicated, but we must find them.
‘We are making the case, very strongly, that now is the time to rethink practices in the workplace as well as to bring the legislation – through the Equality Bill and a new Equal Pay Act – up to date.’
The TUC agrees that this is fair comment. ‘The commission’s position on equal pay is an awful lot better than the position that was wrongly ascribed to their outgoing chief executive,’ says Veale. ‘The two don’t bear much relation to one another. We’re actually quite happy with the commission’s formal position on equal pay.’
According to the Government Equalities Office, the overall gender pay gap for full- and part-time workers is 23% – 22% in the public sector, 28.3% in the private sector. The government is also sending out a strong message by introducing a national target – a Public Service Agreement that promises to ‘reduce the gender pay gap from 12.6%’ (for full-time workers). To what and by when is not stated, but the intention is clear.
But there is an emerging difference between the messages emanating from the top and the reality on the ground. The Equality Bill was expected to require public bodies to report on gender pay (as well as ethnic minority and disability employment rates) and use the public sector’s purchasing power to drag some good practice out of the private sector, where the gender pay gap is more acute.
To get the ball rolling, Whitehall is making an example of itself. The gender pay gap is highest at the Treasury at 26% and lowest at the Department for Work and Pensions, where it is 7%.
But the recession, coupled with effective industry lobbying, has dampened union hopes. The TUC does not now expect the Bill to do anything substantial on equal pay or to include compulsory pay audits for public sector employers.
Veale says: ‘I suspect there will be pressure, under the gender bit of the [new single] equality duty, to have transparency and properly audited pay systems, but no specific mandatory obligations. It will be difficult for public authorities not to do some form of auditing but we’re going to have a general election in a year or so. If the regulations aren’t settled by then, who knows how a Conservative government would tackle all this were they to win.’
Pressure is on the public sector not just as an employer but as a provider of services. Inequality of outcome, be it educational attainment or life expectancy, can be tackled through sensitively designed and provided services.
Some councils have found themselves in trouble with the EHRC over their failure to provide specialised support services for women who have been subject to domestic or sexual violence. Together with the campaigning group End Violence Against Women, the commission has revealed that one in four councils in Britain provides no specialist support services, while a quarter of rape crisis centres face closure or cuts.
The commission is interpreting the gaps in service as a failure by councils to observe the three current public sector duties on equality. Murray says: ‘We are concerned that quite a few public authorities have interpreted the duties to be about having policies and bits of paper and process and they haven’t made the link to the fact that the real test of the duties is whether they’re addressing equality outcomes, whether they know what the biggest equality issues are in their population and whether they’re doing something about it.
‘We were very keen to link that work to the duties to say to them, “These are the kind of areas where we expect to see action and that will be the test of whether you’re doing work on the duty or not.” ’
Murray stresses that there is no immediate prospect of legal action. The commission has simply initiated a formal process, with court a last resort, and is giving councils the chance to explain themselves in writing.
‘There might be some [councils] out there who were on that list who have got decent services shared with the authority next door, for example. But we need to be satisfied that they have taken their obligation under the duty seriously,’ she says.
Over at the IDA, however, Mason maintains that the commission has been unfair. The definition of what counted as specialised support services for women neglected to include things authorities were in many cases already providing, such as national helplines and domestic violence advisers.
‘They ended up with a list of 100 authorities all but four of whom were tiny little districts,’ Mason says. ‘I think there was a lack of understanding that small districts would not provide the specialised services in [the commission’s] definition but do have a range of provision in connection with their counties and other public authorities.’
The commission could do more to build strong relationships with the main public sector institutions and get to know them better, she ventures. ‘I nevertheless understand that it has got legal powers and sometimes it will use them and sometimes we won’t like it.’
Like it or not, equality obligations are likely to continue to be major considerations for councils, both as service providers and employers. The recession merely brings these considerations into sharper focus.
