Q&A on the Public Sector Equality Duty

A lot of current teen provision is dominated by boys and young men and girls and young women are disadvantaged. This is the kind of structural inequality that the Public Sector Equality Duty (part of the Equality Act 2010) is designed to address, by encouraging public bodies including all local authorities to consider potential discrimination in their decision making.

Once councils become aware of the discrimination, most want to change things.

The PSED provides a great framework to support this. But when we talk to councils we get asked a lot of questions about how the duty works for parks and public spaces. So we have teamed up with national law firm Weightmans to produce a note to respond to some of these. The note covers all the most common questions and sets out how the PSED applies to facilities for teenagers and how councils can use it in practice to create parks and public spaces which work better for all teenagers.

We would also recommend taking a look on two blogs which introduce the duty and give a planning barrister's thoughts.

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