UUP severely critical of Equality Commission report on the effectiveness of the Law on Equality of Opportunity
The Equality Commission has published a report into the effectiveness of the law on equality of opportunity. The UUP met recently with the Commission and expressed grave concerns at the Report’s contents.
The UUP concluded in its submission to the Commission that while it noted some positive statements in the Review relating to future developments of effectiveness measures, “its overriding conclusion is one of acute disappointment with the contents of the Commission’s Review of the law (Section 75). To know that such a Review cost £75,000 heightens the party’s disappointment. This situation represents an appalling indictment of the lack of regard given by the Commission to demonstrating whether or not the law has been effective.”
The UUP submission continued: “We fully accept that: it is not solely the responsibility of the Commission to ‘deliver’ equality of opportunity; and that it relates to much more than employment opportunity. Nevertheless the Commission should have been in no doubt as to: the significance of the law; the aspect of equality of opportunity with respect to employment; the duty and associated responsibility placed upon the Commission by law; and the clear targets that were requested by Government in early 1999 to be developed by the Commission in order to assess the impact of the law on the employment market.”
The UUP submission noted that: “The above is against a background of public authorities having made much commitment to the aspect of equality of opportunity, not least in the annual employment monitoring returns forwarded to the Commission together with three-year employment reviews. This hidden cost has not, as far as the UUP is aware, been quantified: such quantification may make for interesting reading.”
It added that “it is totally unacceptable to the UUP that the Commission has made no comment at all in this Review of effectiveness regarding labour market equality of opportunity. No amount of words could justify this silence on the part of the Commission.”
Dermot Nesbitt, UUP Rights spokesman commented on the party’s submission:
“Only last month the Secretary of State said in Parliament, concerning all the expensive public enquiries, that there is no question but that we must continue to discover the truth about the past. All the UUP asks, and it will cost little or no money, is to discover the truth about the present - concerning effectiveness measurement techniques for employment in NI? The Commission was tasked to answer this question and has completely failed. This question remains, as it has done for some time, but when is it going to be answered?”