Race Relations Act

The Race Relations Act 1976, amended by the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000, (external link) makes it unlawful to discriminate against anyone on grounds of race, colour, nationality (including citizenship), or ethnic or national origin.

The Race Relations (Amendment) Act provides new powers to tackle racism in public authorities in 2 major ways

• outlawing any discrimination (direct and indirect)
• eliminating unlawful discrimination and promoting equality of opportunity and good relations between people of different racial groups (the "duty to promote race equality").

What does the general duty mean for public authorities?

The general duty means that, in performing their functions public authorities must have due regard to the need to promote race equality. Public authorities will need, for example, to ensure that they

• consult ethnic minority representatives
• take account of the potential impact of policies on ethnic minorities
• monitor the actual impact of policies and services and take remedial action when necessary to address any unexpected or unwarranted disparities
• monitor their workforce and employment practices to ensure that the procedures and practices are fair.

Commission for Racial Equality (CRE)

The CRE was set up under the Race Relations Act as a separate statutory agency and its duties are to

• work towards eliminating discrimination
• promote equality of opportunity and understanding between people of different racial groups
• review the workings of the Act.

A major feature of the legislation is that it will be enforceable. The CRE will be able to serve a compliance notice if they consider that an authority is not complying with their specific duties. If the authority continues not to comply, the CRE will be able to ask the County Court to order the authority to comply.

Race Equality in the Department of Health (external link)
Details of the Department’s work on race equality, including the implementation of the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000.

Home Office guidance
Detailed guidance is available at
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/docs2/rragidnce.html (external link)

The Home Office has also produced a leaflet explaining that there have been changes to the law:
Changes to the law against racial discrimination (external link) (PDF file size 172kb)
Changes to the law against racial discrimination (external link) (HTML)

Next: Human Rights Act