Public bodies in England, Wales and Scotland are subject to the ‘public sector duties’ (PSDs) that place on them a series of legal obligations. The three duties are:
The first of the three duties, the race equality duty, came out of the Macpherson Report on the murder of the black teenager, Stephen Lawrence. Following failures of the investigation of Lawrence’s murder, the report revealed institutional racism in the Metropolitan Police and it was clear that a radical rethink was needed in the approach that public sector organisations were taking towards addressing discrimination and racism.
Prior to the introduction of the race equality duty, the emphasis of existing equality legislation was on rectifying cases of discrimination and harassment after they occurred, not to prevent such situations happening in the first place. Existing legislation was geared towards tackling individual cases, as opposed to addressing issues such as institutional racism (as identified in the Macpherson Report) occurring throughout an organisation.
The race equality duty was designed to shift the onus from individuals to organisations, placing for the first time an obligation on public bodies to positively promote equality, not merely to avoid discrimination. The effect of this was to place race equality at the centre of all policy development and decision making, resulting in organisational change. By placing race equality at the centre of their work, rather than develop 'one size fits all' public services, public authorities were required to develop public services that met the needs of different groups. This should lead to better policy development and more effective use of public resources.
Following the introduction of the race duty, it was clear that progress could also be made on other areas of equality by the introduction of duties for disability and for gender. After extensive consultation with government, stakeholders, unions and individuals, the disability equality duty came into force in 2006, followed by the gender equality duty in 2007.