News

Lincolnshire bus firm in pledge to disabled woman who was refused access

A bus company boss has pledged to roll out wheelchair-friendly vehicles on a busy village route after a disabled woman was refused access to a bus.

Lincoln City Radio launches weekly Polish language programme

A community radio station in Lincoln is to begin broadcasting a weekly Polish language programme.

The March 2012 edition of Women’s Asylum News is now available

The Public Sector Equality Duty One Year On

The Context:

The public sector Equality Duty came into force on 5 April 2011 and was followed by Specific Duties Regulations that came into force on 10 September 2011. While the EHRC has worked to produce a Code of Practice to explain the duty in more detail, it is no longer proceeding with its plan to lay this before parliament. According to the EHRC “The Government is keen to reduce bureaucracy around the Equality Act 2010, and feels that further statutory guidance may place too much of a burden on public bodies”. Instead it will issue a draft code as non statutory guidance. How has the public sector been affected by the duty, what lessons have been learned so far and what can be expected from the non statutory code?

Feed into the One East Midlands response to the Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme

One East Midlands is coordinating a response, on behalf of you, our members, to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) consultation on The Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme.

 The aim of the new Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme (GASDS) is to allow charities and small community amateur sports clubs (CASC) to claim a Gift Aid style payment on donations received in circumstances where it is difficult to collect donors’ details, or where donors may be reluctant to give them.

 The HMRC consultation is open to 25 May. The government will take all responses into account and feed them into the legislation, where appropriate.

 Please find attached key information we have drawn out from the consultation and the questions we would like your responses to. To give us time to collate our response to the consultation, please provide your responses by Friday 18 May.

Government Equalities Office Newsletter

Equal civil marriage consultation

This consultation sets out the government's proposals to enable same-sex couples to have a civil marriage.

The key proposals of the consultation are:

• to enable same-sex couples to have a civil marriage i.e. only civil ceremonies in a register office or approved premises (like a hotel)
• to make no changes to religious marriages. This will continue to only be legally possible between a man and a woman
• to retain civil partnerships for same-sex couples and allow couples already in a civil partnership to convert this into a marriage
• civil partnership registrations on religious premises will continue as is currently possible i.e. on a voluntary basis for faith groups and with no religious content
• individuals will, for the first time, be able legally to change their gender without having to end their marriage

Current legislation allows same-sex couples to enter into a civil partnership, but not civil marriage.

The full details of the consultation are included in the pdf version of the consultation document, which is available to download below.

Human Rights Review 2012 - Executive Summary

Download the Human Rights Review 2012 Executive Summary or explore it online. You can also download the full Review chapter-by-chapter.

http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/human-rights/human-rights-review/the-review/

STOP HATE Q3 REPORT

Some very interesting reading

Equality Network Newsletter