Race equality legislation has yet to make enough impact

Councils still have a long way to go to achieve race equality
and must start showing improvements within the next year, the
Commission for Racial Equality warned last week.

CRE health and social care strategy adviser Brian Colman told
Community Care LIVE that, although there had been some
improvements on racial equality issues within social care this was
fragmented and needed more consistency.

He said that, despite the introduction of the Race Relations
Amendment Act 2000 in May 2002 – which placed a duty on public
sector organisations to promote equality – there was little
evidence of its impact so far.

Under the act, every public sector body is required to produce a
Race Equality Scheme outlining how it will eliminate
institutionalised racism in its services and policies.

Colman said that, although it was reasonable to expect councils
to concentrate on establishing structures to achieve their
scheme’s aims in the first year, “they now need to show they
have moved from paper compliance to showing evidence of real
outcomes”.