The Equality Act 2010 requires public bodies such as LSE to consider equality in policy decision-making. The Act gives protection on the grounds of nine areas – age; disability; gender reassignment; sex; marriage and civil partnership; pregnancy and maternity (including adoption and surrogacy), race; religion and/or belief; and sexual orientation – which you must test against to ensure that equality has been addressed.
Within the Act lies the Public Sector Equality Duty which consists of two parts:
1. The general duty to ensure that all public bodies, which carry out a public function pays 'due regard' to three main aims, namely:
- Put an end to unlawful behaviour that is banned by the Equality Act 2010, including discrimination, harassment and victimisation
- Advance equal opportunities between people who have a protected characteristic and those who do not
- Foster good relations between people who have a protected characteristic and those who do not
2. The specific duties, which require us to analyse the effect of any decision, publishing evidence of the analysis and information about how we engage with groups protected under the Act. This is what is known as an equality analysis.