Age discrimination overview published

As noted in a post in July, the Government Equalities Office has published its guidance on the application of age discrimination to services.

"Banning Age Discrimination in Services" is an "overview" which provides a good introduction to age discrimination for those involved in providing services to the public.  It is the latest in a number of publications from the Government Equality Office (click here for the full list).

Keen eyed followers of this blog will recall that we posted in September last year that the GEO intended to progress the statutory Code of Practice for Higher and Further Education (to which Courts and Tribunals must refer) by laying it before Parliament "in late Autumn 2011".  The consultation on that closed on 31 December 2010, so it was well due.  It turns out that "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."   So the  Equality and Human Rights Commission cannot progress the further statutory codes of practice that it intended.

The Commission is clearly not in agreement with the Government's stance (see its page on the Codes of Practice).  The Commisson says it will publish the draft codes as "non-statutory" codes and in the meantime has published guidance for the HE/FE sector.