Consultation on Discrimination Legislation 2019

The Committee for Employment and Social Security (ESS) published proposals for consultation on multi-ground discrimination legislation on 9 July 2019. The consultation ran for 12 weeks until 30 September 2019.

Several documents were published:

• a technical consultation document aimed at those with existing subject specialism
• a summary of the proposals (which was also available in Latvian, Polish and Portuguese)
• an Easy Read version of the proposals
• Frequently Asked Questions for:
  • employers and service providers,
  • rights holders
  • accommodation providers 
• a consultation questionnaire (an online version and a paper version).

In addition, various meetings were held with interested groups throughout the consultation period.

The findings of the consultation were then published in January 2020

In response to the consultation, the Committee for Employment and Social Security (ESS) reviewed and/or reconsidered a substantial number of policy issues. Several of these relate to exceptions to the legislation.

ESS published, as an appendix to its report considered by the States in July 2020, an explanation of  where the Committee had decided to make significant changes to the draft policy proposals on which it consulted in the summer of 2019. This part of the report can be viewed here.

In other areas, the Committee decided not to change its proposals.

The changes were in relation to:

• phasing
• definition of disability
• definition of carer status
• timescale for making a complaint
• third party harassment
• liability
• financial compensation structure
• reasonable adjustment
• removal of separate anticipatory accessibility duty
• accommodation providers and reasonable adjustment
• equal pay for work of equal value
• landlords and children
• advice and enforcement
• definition of employee / worker
• victimisation
• race
• multiple and intersectional discrimination
• striking out claims
• exceptions

Some changes were made by the States when they considered the Committee for ESS’s proposals. This was done by Deputies laying amendments which were then voted on by the whole of the States. One notable amendment changed the phasing to add religious belief and sexual orientation into the first phase leaving the implementation with only 2 phases.

The resolutions provide a record of what the States decided.

The States unanimously agreed with producing a discrimination ordinance to provide protection on multiple grounds.

The drafting of the ordinance was prioritised and the Law Officers given the drafting instructions for protection on the grounds of race, disability and carer status.

A Policy Letter is being produced by ESS for drafting instructions on the grounds of sexual orientation and religion/belief which is due to be considered by the States in late Spring /early Summer 2021. These grounds will then be included in the ordinance on the grounds covered in the first phase.

The ordinance on the first phase is due to return to the States in 2022.

The other sections of this page give an indication of who the over 1,000 responses to the consultation in 2019 were from and what meetings and events were held by ESS to publicise the consultation.

Pre-launch briefings

– Presentation to States members – 8 July 2019
– Presentation to the media – 8 July 2019

Launch events

– Business breakfast – 9 July 2019
– Other stakeholders – 9 July 2019
– Public meeting – 15 July 2019

Other events/meetings held during the consultation period

– Youth Forum workshop, facilitated by the Youth Commission – 14 July 2019
– Committee for Education, Sport & Culture meeting – 16 July 2019
– Committee for Economic Development meeting – 18 July 2019
– States of Alderney’s Policy & Finance Committee meeting – 22 July 2019
– Committee for Health & Social Care meeting – 24 July 2019
– Committee for Home Affairs meeting – 5 August 2019
– Committee for Environment & Infrastructure meeting – 8 August 2019
– Chamber of Commerce lunch event – 19 August 2019
– Policy & Resources Committee meeting – 29 August & 10 September 2019
– Meeting with representatives of Liberate – 3 September 2019
– Guernsey Private Residential Landlords Association open meeting – 5 September 2019
– Guernsey Disability Alliance Member Charities’ meeting – 6 September 2019
– Chamber of Commerce ‘Lunch and Learn’ event – 10 September 2019
– Joint Institute of Directors and Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development event – 12 September 2019
– Development & Planning Authority meeting – 13 September 2019
– Guernsey Disability Alliance Members’ meeting – 17 September 2019
– Focus group for small businesses – representatives of ten small business attended – 18 September 2019
– Met individually with seven small business owners to discuss the draft policy proposals.

The following organisations responded to the consultation by email or letter rather than by completion of the form.

[Note: This list does not include those organisations who responded through the consultation questionnaire (that identified themselves) as it was not known, in all cases, if respondents were answering on behalf of their organisation.]

• Association of Guernsey Charities
• Autism Guernsey
• BWCI
• Carers Guernsey
• Carey Olsen
• CI Toys
• CIPD (Guernsey Branch)
• Deloitte
• Employment & Discrimination Tribunal
• Equality Working Group
• Guernsey Association of Pension Providers
• Guernsey Disability Alliance Executive Committee
• Guernsey Electricity
• Guernsey Employment Trust
• Guernsey Financial Services Commission
• Guernsey Society for Physically Disabled People
• Guernsey Women’s Alliance
• HSBC
• Channel Islands Humanists (a section of Humanists UK)
• IOD, CIPD, CGI, GIBA and Chamber of Commerce (jointly)
• NASUWT
• Ogier
• OSA
• Prospect
• Ron Short Centre Service Users
• Safer LBG
• States Trading and Supervisory Board
• Unite
• Youth Forum

The following States bodies responded to the consultation and their responses can be seen in full in appendix 3 of the consultation findings

• Policy and Resource Committee
• Committee for Economic Development
• Committee for Education Sports and Culture
• Committee for the Environment and Infrastructure
• Committee for Health and Social Care
• Committee for Home Affairs
• Development and Planning Authority
• States Trading Supervisory Board

The Committee for Employment & Social Security (‘the Committee’) received over a thousand responses to its consultation on draft proposals for multi-ground discrimination legislation.

In gathering information about who had replied, respondents were invited to select all categories that applied to them, which is why the total number of responses exceeds the number of respondents.

A small proportion of responses were from respondents who categorised themselves as ‘other.’ This included respondents who described themselves as a student, a guest worker, a disabled person, a parent of a child with a disability, a carer, a charity, a member of the LGBTQ+ community, an academic specialising in the field of equality and inclusion, a civil servant, a volunteer, a health professional, a family, a prisoner and others.

The full breakdown of responses to this question is below.

1,153 respondents answered the question about where they live in Part A of the questionnaire, 386 in Part B and 308 in Part C.

A number of respondents provided more than one answer to this question which is why the total number of responses exceeds the number of respondents.

As expected, the vast majority of responses came from Guernsey residents (including Herm residents).

The breakdown of responses is set out  below.

906 respondents answered where their organisation was based in Part A of the questionnaire, 299 in Part B and 239 in Part C.
The response suggests that respondents to Part B and C included a higher proportion of
respondents from businesses and organisations with cross-jurisdictional operations.

The breakdown of responses is set out  below.