Equality in the CSA > Equality Scheme | Annual Reviews of Progress | Screening | Equality Impact Assessments | Five Year Review
Equality in the CSA
Essentially, the legislation places a duty on public authorities to ensure that their work is fair and takes on board the needs of different groups of people. Section 75 and Schedule 9 of the Northern Ireland Act elaborate on what public authorities are to do.
The groups set out in Section 75 are:
a) persons of different religious belief, political opinion, racial group, age, marital status or sexual orientation;
b) men and women generally;
c) persons with a disability and persons without;
d) persons with dependants and persons without.
The legislation seeks to ensure that equality is mainstreamed in public authorities. This means it aims to ascertain that equality considerations are taken on board in everything an organisation does, in other words that equality becomes part and parcel of the work of an organisation.
To this end, Section 75 requires all public bodies to produce an Equality Scheme. Our scheme, which was approved in June 2001, lays out what we will do to promote equality and good relations within the CSA over a five year period. The main issues, which the Scheme addresses, relate to:
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how we take on board equality issues in reviewing and developing our policies
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how we equip our staff to effectively address equality issues in their work by delivering training to them
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how we consult and communicate with the public in all aspects of implementing the statutory equality duties
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how we promote good relations within our work.
We report on a yearly basis to the Equality Commission on our progress in implementing the scheme. Click here for further information on our Annual Reviews of Progress.
The Equality Commission's guidance outlines a two-stage process for the consideration of equality implications in the development and review of policies: Screening as the initial review to identify those policies with greatest equality implications and Equality Impacts Assessments as a subsequent, more rigorous examination of those identified policies.