Hear no Evil, Speak no Evil, See no Evil, especially when it comes to Equality

 

The government has been busy trying to chip away at the Equality Act, undermining the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, claiming that Equality legislation was unnecessary and bureaucratic by entrapping it within the Red Tape Challenge. Not satisfied with a response for overwhelming support for its continuation, now it is being attacked from another direction.



Apparently murmurings from the CLG (Communities and Local Government) are going to allow councils to do away with asking residents and users of public services for their demographic data. Allegedly such data is an infringement of privacy laws according to the Daily Mail’s interpretation, http://www.google.co.uk/#q=daily+mail+%2B+equality&hl=en&prmd=ivnsu&source=univ&tbm=nws&tbo=u&sa=X&ei=e2lgTu3NKIewhQfsl_Qh&ved=0CCAQqAI&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=9db67fb2b395b368&biw=832&bih=413and true you really should not read everything you read in the newspapers, but it does accentuate central governments suspicion of all things to do with equality.


All talk of Equality has been replaced by fairness, and mention of community cohesion by integration. Yet the basic principles to implementing both remain the same, you need to know what is and is not happening within different communities to be able to tell if things are fairer and to understand how people are feeling towards individuals who are not the same as them. Those working in equality need to seize back the semantics and step up our collective game to dispel the myths and tirade of attacks on the concept. We are not even comparing like with like, cohesion is not the same as integration, and as if the same CLG department knows this, they have reduced their autumn announcement on integration from a strategy to a policy statement. The suggestion being that, this will give local authorities the flexibility to do more, or in some cases and judging by some of their responses to consultations earlier in the year, nothing at all.
We should learn lessons from the world of immigration and migration. A great deal is currently being discussed about having data and developing a more mature and sophisticated debate that avoids the extremes of the left – let them all in, and extreme right – keep them all out. Such data and the development of a reasonable debate relies on keeping accurate records, not something that the UK Border Agency is well known for.


By portraying equality as a secret cult of busy bodies, and those on the extreme left, the government ignores at its peril the business argument for equality. More inequality means more intervention by the state (Big Society still hasn’t taken off, and councils and the voluntary sector remain bewildered and confused by it) which means more costs. More inequality fuels tension between the perceived ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’.

It is not rocket science, but what we wouldn’t give for some of the scare mongers on equality to be sent into outer space!

P.S A big apology to all those who have asked what has happened to the blog over the last few months and why we have been so quite, not enough time to write, and too much potential for libel! But we're back now and have a lot to say.