Legislation Equalities and Sexualities Act

Order Description
Assessment 1: A critical analysis of a piece of equality legislation or equality and diversity practice.

Length: 2,500 words.

Deadline: Friday 18th November 2015.

Brief: Critically assess your chosen piece of legislation or policy. This can be a policy of an organisation like the NHS, the Police, or an aspect of primary Government legislation past or present for example the Disability Discrimination Act (1995) the Equality Act (2010) the Race Relations Amendment Act (2001). You are not required to assess the whole act or policy, you can analyse its general provisions or choose a specific aspect of the act or policy to analyse. In analysing the act you should answer/do the following.

1. To what extent are the provisions of the policy/act liberal, radical or conservative in their design(you would need to provide evidence to justify your view, and this can be done by reference to literature, alternative legislation, or other evidence such as comments from politicians/policy makers)

2. To what extent can the provisions of the policy/act eliminate discrimination in the area under analysis (In this section you are assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the policy/legislation. Are its provisions robust, clear, enforceable, easy to monitor in regards to effectiveness?)

3. Compare the act/policy you have focused on, with that of another act/policy either from the UK or abroad and outline what that comparison reveals about equality and diversity policy and practice in Britain. (By comparing legislation/policy are you able to say that Britain is progressing/regressing in this area? How effective is legislation in bringing about social change? Does social change in this field occur because of other factors, economics, social attitudes? In the final section you are being asked to consider how important is legislation/policy in the overall scheme of things in making Britain a more equal society.