Does positive discrimination benefit anyone?
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By Simon Rice-Birchall Telephone: 0845 498 4978 |
Positive discrimination has been a contentious issue with many critics claiming that it disadvantages the very people it tries to help. Is positive discrimination a good thing and is their still a place for it in today’s workplace?
There are currently only very limited rights under UK law to positively discriminate. Positive action, allowing a group access to training facilities which help them obtain particular work or encouraging members of a group to take up opportunities for a particular type of work, is allowed on grounds of sex, race, religion or sexual orientation if that group is under-represented. There is also no prohibition on positive discrimination in favour of a disabled person and the duty to make reasonable adjustments might sometimes require this. However, there is no wider right allowing positive discrimination more generally. Against this backdrop there has been criticism that the law does not go far enough to improve diversity. In particular, the Association of Chief Police officers has expressed concerns that it will not be able to meet the diversity targets set in 1999 by the then Home Secretary, Jack Straw. The targets, to be achieved by 2009, were set at 7% for ethnic minorities and 35% for women. It has been suggested that if these targets are to be met there needs to be a change to the law to allow a wider right to positively discriminate. Despite the potential effectiveness of such a change the proposal has faced opposition from unexpected quarters. The Commission for Racial Equality has warned that providing a general right to positively discriminate would inflame racial tension. It should also be borne in mind that, in prescribed circumstances, employers are able to discriminate on grounds of general occupational requirements or qualifications where these are a genuine requirement for the job. For example, a job which entails the provision of welfare services to persons of a specific sex or racial origin might be limited to applicants of that sex or racial origin. This is a separate issue to positive discrimination but closely connected. Looking forwards, the Final Report of the Equalities Review, published last year, concluded that there is a case for legislation to provide wider balancing measures but did not propose allowing a blanket provision for positive discrimination. It seems public opinion would not yet welcome this. |
