Gender Equality Duty

Alnwick District Council is preparing to publish a Gender Equality Scheme by the end of April 2007, in line with our duty in the Equality Act 2006. The Equality Act 2006 amended the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 to place a statutory general duty on all public authorities to have due regard to the need:

· To eliminate unlawful discrimination and harassment
· To promote equality of opportunity between men and women

Under these general duties, Alnwick District Council also has more specific statutory duties, which in brief are:

· To prepare and publish a gender equality scheme
· To consider the need to include objectives to address the causes of any gender pay gap
· To gather and use information on how our policies and practices affect gender equality in the workforce and delivery of services
· To consult stakeholders (i.e. employees, service users and others including trades unions) and take account of relevant information
· To assess the impact of its current and proposed policies and practices on men and women
· To implement the actions set out in the gender equality scheme within 3 years
· To report progress against the scheme every year and review the scheme at least every 3 years

Why has the gender equality duty been introduced?

The duty is intended to address the fact that, despite 30 years of individual legal rights to sex equality, there is still widespread discrimination – sometimes intentional, sometimes unintentional – and continued inequality of both men and women.

For instance, women are frequently disadvantaged in life by policies and practices that do not recognise their greater caring responsibilities and the different pattern of their working lives. Similarly, men are also disadvantaged by cultures that do not support their family or childcare responsibilities, and by family services that assume they have little or no role in parenting. Both sexes suffer from stereotyping of their roles and needs. The duty helps us to respond to stereotyping, sex discrimination and sexism, resulting in improvements for everyone.

Getting your Views

Our Gender Equality Scheme will incorporate a three-year plan, showing the actions we will take to:

- identify our gender equality prioriities,
- take meaningful action to improve our services
- undertake a regular equal pay review, and
- conduct gender equality impact assessments

We want to find out what is important to you, so the Gender Equality Scheme of the Council reflects as much as it can, your needs as an individual, community groups or interest group.

To help us do this, please read and comment on the Gender Equality Scheme contained at section 5.3 of our Comprehensive Equality Scheme to tell us about your experiences as a stakeholder of the Council.