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1. The Equality Act 2010 received Royal Assent on 8 April 2010. The primary purpose of the Act is to harmonise and simplify the nine major pieces of discrimination legislation and around 100 statutory instruments setting-out related rules and regulations passed over the last 30 years or so. It should be noted that the Act preserves the Armed Forces’ exemptions in earlier legislation in respect of sex, disability and age.

2. The provisions of the Act come into force progressively with effect from 1 October 2010. A summary of the first tranche of changes is at Annex A. In April 2011, the Act will introduce a new Public Sector Equality Duty to replace the existing separate duties on public authorities relating to race, disability and sex equality and also covering age, sexual orientation, religion or belief, pregnancy and maternity and gender reassignment more fully. The Government is currently conducting a public consultation on the exact terms of the new Duty and the Equality and Human Rights Commission is preparing a Code of Practice. There are also a number of changes for which provision is made in the Act but which the Government has not yet decided whether to implement. These are listed at Annex B.

3. Implementation of the Act will necessitate some, mainly technical, changes to existing Armed Forces policies and procedures. This work is being led by the DCDS(Pers) Diversity Team in consultation with the single Service Equality and Diversity Teams and the Department’s legal staffs. Further general information about the Act is available on the Government Equalities Office website: http://equalities.gov.uk/equality_bill.aspx. Enquiries about the implications of the Act for the Armed Forces should be addressed to:

DCDS(Pers) Diversity Team
Level 6, Zone A,
Main Building
Tel: 020-7218-3023
or the appropriate single Service team.

This text was published as 2010DIN01-179