Equality & Diversity Policy
Appendix 2- Summary of Relevant Legislation
This is not an exhaustive list. Rochefort Shugar Ltd. will comply with all amendments and future legislations and regulations.
This is not an exhaustive list. Rochefort Shugar Ltd. will comply with all amendments and future legislations and regulations.
Equality Act 2010
The Equality Act 2010 provides a legislative framework to protect the rights of individuals and advance equality of opportunity for all. The act identifies the following protected characteristics; age, disability, gender re-assignment, marriage and civil partnerships, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion and belief, sex and sexual orientation. The Act protects individuals with protected characteristics from direct and indirect discrimination, harassment and victimisation in employment and the provision of goods and services. Under the legislation organisations have duties to make reasonable adjustments for disabled people in employment and service provision.
Protection from Harassment Act 1997
Harassment is both a criminal offence and a civil action under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. This means that someone can be prosecuted in the criminal courts if they harass someone. It also means the person being harassed can take action against the person in the civil courts. Generally speaking harassment is behaviour which causes a person distress or alarm. The Act also says that the person must have experienced at least two incidents by the same person or group of people for it to be harassment. It's the courts that decide if something is harassment under the Act. The courts will look at whether most people or a reasonable person would think the behaviour amounts to harassment.
Human Rights Act 1998
This Act contains a number of Articles with particular relevance for the way organisations handle equality and diversity of opportunity taken from the European Convention on Human Rights, they include:
- Right to life
- Prohibition of torture
- Prohibition of slavery and forced labour
- Right to liberty and security
- Right to a fair trial
- No punishment without law
- Right to respect for private and family life
- Freedom of thought, conscience and religion
- Freedom of expression
- Freedom of assembly and association
- Right to marry
- Prohibition of discrimination
Gender Recognition Act 2004
Allows transsexual people to apply for full legal recognition in their acquired gender. Following a successful application, the law regards the transsexual person, for all purposes, as being of the acquired gender.
Section 22 of the Act provides that it is an offence for person who has acquired protected information in an official capacity to disclose the information to any other person. "Protected information" is defined in section 22(2) as information relating to a person who has applied for a gender recognition certificate under the Act, and which concerns that application (or a subsequent application by them), or their gender prior to being granted a full GRC. Section 22(3) defines where a person acquires protected information "in an official capacity".
Section 22 of the Act is designed to protect the privacy rights of transsexual people under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights by criminalising the disclosure of information relating to their gender history by a person who acquired that information in an official capacity. Section 22 sets out a series of exceptions, where disclosure is considered to be justified.
Staff should not ask to see a person's Gender Recognition Certificate.
Employment Act 2002
The Employment Act is wide ranging, covering work and parents, dispute resolution in the workplace, improvements to employment tribunal procedures, including the introduction of an equal pay questionnaire, provisions to implement the Fixed Term Work Directive, a new right to time off work for union learning representatives, work focused interviews for partners of people receiving working-age benefits and some data sharing provisions. It also empowers the Secretary of State to make regulations to enable workers on short term contracts to enjoy the rights and benefits of permanent workers, including pay
The Employment Equality (Repeal of Retirement Age Provisions) Regulations 2011
The Default Retirement Age (DRA) changed on 6 April 2011.
The DRA was phased out over a transitional period running until 30 September 2011. Under the regulations:
- Workers retire when they are ready to, enforced retirement will only be possible if it is objectively justified.
- You must avoid discriminating against all workers on the grounds of age.
- This legislation is applicable to all employers and all company sizes and sectors.
These changes do not affect an employee's state pension age and entitlements, which may well be separate from the age at which they retire.
Children and Families Act 2014
Provisions in Part 7 of the Act create a new employment right to shared parental leave and statutory shared parental pay for eligible working parents. Women continue to be eligible for maternity leave and statutory maternity pay or allowance in the same way as previously. If they choose to bring their leave and pay or allowance to an early end, eligible working parents can share up to the balance of the remaining leave and pay as shared parental leave and pay. Eligible adopters can use the new system for shared parental leave and pay. Adoption leave and pay include prospective parents in the "Fostering for Adoption" system, and parents in a surrogacy arrangement who are eligible, and intend to apply, for a parental order.
Part 8 creates a new right for employees and qualifying agency workers to take unpaid time off work to attend up to two ante-natal appointments with a pregnant woman. The right is available to the pregnant woman's husband, civil partner or partner, the father or parent of the pregnant woman's child, and intended parents in a surrogacy situation who meet specified conditions.
Provision is made for paid and unpaid time off work for adopters to attend meetings in advance of a child being placed with them for adoption.
Part 9 provides for the expansion of the right to request flexible working from employees who are parents or carers to all employees, and the removal of the statutory process that employers must currently follow when considering requests for flexible working. Changes enable employers to consider requests using their existing HR processes instead of having to follow a statutory procedure.
Work and Families Act 2006
The Act's main purposes are to:
- extend the maximum period that may be prescribed in regulations as the period for which statutory maternity pay, maternity allowance and statutory adoption pay are payable from 26 weeks to 52 weeks;
- introduce a new scheme that will provide certain employees (generally fathers) with a new entitlement to take leave to care for a child and a new entitlement to receive pay while they are on leave, if certain conditions are met;
- widen the scope of the existing law on flexible working to enable more people with caring responsibilities to request to work flexibly