The Gender Equality Duty (GED) was a useful tool to hold public bodies to account on gender equality. The GED was be superseded by the Equality Act in April 2011. The resources below show how the GED could be used to support women's organisations and their work.
The GED, which came in to force in April 2007, created new legal requirements for public authorities. It was brought into being because existing legislation was insufficient to eradicate the persistent and systematic discrimination against women.
This briefing outlines what the GED was and how it could have been used.
More information on the GED and useful policy to cut and paste is here.
The Government Equalities Office published a factsheet for public
authorities and practitioners on the Gender Equality Duty, explaining
it's uses and highlighting its importance.
WRC produced this template for local government bodies in 2008, to
support them in engaging with local women’s organisations and
addressing key issues of gender inequality.
This is a toolkit of letters and factsheets, developed by the
End Violence Against Women Coalition (EVAW) and the Equal Opportunities Commission (now the
EHRC). The letters showed you how to use the GED as a tool to lobby locally, and hold public bodies to account on gender equality.
In January 2010 the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) produced revised guidance on how public bodies should be updating their Gender Equality Schemes, including a focus on ensuring proportionality. The four long-standing areas (where there is significant disadvantage or barriers to opportunity) that public authorities across the board are expected to take action on are:
1. Income and pay gaps
2. The gender power gap in public sector leadership positions and politics
3. The causes and consequences of violence against women and girls (VAWG)
4. Discrimination and harassment against transsexual and transgender people.
For more information on the
Equality Act go
here.