Extension for EHRC to comply with statutory duties
The Equality Act 2006 (Dissolution of Commissions and Consequential and Transitional Provisions) (Amendment) Order 2007 has been published, extending the deadline from 1 January 2008 to 1 April 2008 for the Equality and Human Rights Commission to comply with its race, disability and gender equality statutory duties.
The order extends the deadline from 1 January 2008 to 1 April 2008 for the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) to comply with the statutory duties imposed on it as a public authority by the race, disability and gender equality legislation.
According to the legislation, all public bodies are required to produce a Race Equality Scheme, a Disability Equality Scheme and a Gender Equality Scheme. Under the Equality Act 2006 (Dissolution of Commissions and Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Order 2007, the EHRC should have produced these schemes by 1 January 2008. However, towards the end of 2007, the EHRC felt that it was unable to meet its deadline due to the staff responsible for producing these schemes being unable to take up their appointments until shortly before 1 October 2007.
Given that other public authorities are likely to use the EHRC’s schemes as a model, the decision was taken to extend the deadline to 1 April 2008 to allow sufficient time to produce “fully compliant, exemplary” schemes. No pressure then!
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