Equality Act 2010 - What's new...
The Equality Act 2010 came into force 1st October 2010 bringing together nine current pieces of discrimination legislation into one act.
Affected is
Age, Gender Reassignment, Sex, Sexual Orientation, Pregnancy and Maternity, Disability, Marriage and Civil Partnership, Religion or Belief and Race.
What is new
Protected characteristics.
The Act covers the same groups that were protected by existing equality legislation but these groups are now to be known as “protected characteristics”
Pay secrecy
It is unlawful to prevent or restrict employees from having a discussion around their pay if their intention is to ascertain differences due to protected characteristics.
Extension of employment tribunal powers
Under previous equality and discrimination law an employment tribunal could recommend that an employer must eliminate or reduce the effect on the claimant of any discrimination. Under the new Act a tribunal can recommend the same for other employees not on the claimant.
Pre-employment health-related checks
You can now only ask health-related questions to help you decide whether you need to make any reasonable adjustments to the selection process or to establish that ...