The Scottish Government

The Equality Act 2006 created what is called a "general duty" on public authorities to:

• Eliminate unlawful discrimination and harassment, and
• Promote equality of opportunity between men and women.

The Equality Act also allows for the creation of what are known as "specific duties" to be placed on public authorities. These duties help those bodies to fulfil their responsibilities under the general duty.

Complying with the Gender Equality Duty means public authorities need to be proactive. This means that instead of the responsibility being on an individual to make a complaint about sex discrimination, a public authority is now be required to demonstrate that they treat men and women fairly.

All public authorities in Scotland are subject to the general duty, but only some public authorities (for example, the Scottish Government, Local Authorities, Health Boards etc) are subject to the specific duties.

Public authorities now need to think about the policies that they develop and the services they deliver with the potentially different needs of women and men in mind.

It is necessary for public authorities to look at the diversity of people who should be benefiting from their policies, or who use their services and ask themselves - what are the potentially different issues, needs and priorities for women and men?

The Gender Equality Duty came into force on April 6, 2007. Many public authorities prepared to meet the Disability Equality Duty (which came into force in December 2006) and the Gender Equality Duty at the same time.

Code of Practice and Sectoral Guidance

A Scottish Code of Practice to help public authorities understand the requirements of the Gender Equality Duty has been developed by the Equal Opportunities Commission Scotland and can be downloaded from their website. The EOC has also developed guidance which relates the duty to specific sectors and this can also be found on their website.

The Specific Duties

The specific duties were laid before the Scottish Parliament on February 1, 2007. A PDF version of the Order can be downloaded from the the Office of Public Sector Information website.

In brief, listed Scottish public authorities must:

• prepare and publish a gender equality scheme, showing how it will meet its general and specific duties and setting out its gender equality objectives.
• consider the need to include objectives to address the causes of any gender pay gap.
• gather and use information on how the public authority's policies and practices affect gender equality in the workforce and in the delivery of services.
• consult stakeholders (i.e. employees, service users and others, including trade unions) and take account of relevant information in order to determine its gender equality objectives.
• assess the impact of its current and proposed policies and practices on gender equality, and to pay due regard to the results of those impact assessments.
• implement the actions set out in its scheme within three years, unless it is unreasonable or impracticable to do so.
• report against the scheme every year and review the scheme at least every three years.

In addition to the duty set out above, listed Scottish public authorities with more than 150 full-time staff must:

• prepare and publish an equal pay statement, that sets out that authority's policy on equal pay between men and women;
• report against the statement and review the statement, at least every three years.

Finally, Scottish Ministers must:

• set out priority areas which Scottish Ministers have identified for the advancement of equality of opportunity between women and men;
• report on progress in those priority areas, at least every three years.