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The Editor |
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Managing Director,
Mrs Susan Pattrick |
| My Featured Charity |
Essex Wildlife Trust is the county's leading conservation charity, which relies on membership subscriptions, donations, legacies, local businesses and grant making organisations to fund the majority of its work. Essex Wildlife Trust has more than 35,000 members who enable the Trust to manage and protect more than 7,250 acres of land on 87 nature reserves, one nature park and run seven visitor centres. The aim of Essex Wildlife Trust is to Protect Wildlife for the Future for the People of Essex. It is one of the largest of the 47 county wildlife trusts that work together throughout the British Isles as The Wildlife Trusts.
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Please feel free to nominate a future charity of the month here...
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Greetings!
The series on the Equality Act continues this month with a look at Gender Reassignment.
My inspirational person this month is Siobhan Parker... read her article on running multiple businesses whilst living with MS and how she benefits from that ...
The featured charity for this month is The Essex Wildlife Trust, whose dedicated work affects us all, most of the time without us even knowing ... |
| The Equality Act 2010 | |
In last month's issue we covered aspects of Disability Discrimination under The Equality Act. Each month as I address individual aspects in a little more detail, I hope this encourages you to think about how well you / your organisation is placed in understanding your obligations.
This month is about Gender Reassignment... |
| Equality Act 2010 - Gender Reassignment | |
Gender is the third of the protected characteristics that are covered by the Equality Act 2010. This covers several areas. These are:
- Unlawful sexual discrimination where someone is treated unfairly because of his or her gender, whether it is direct or indirect discrimination. This covers, women, men and transsexual people, all of whom can experience sex discrimination;
- Gender where pay rates can be different for different sexes even when they are doing exactly the same job;
- The promotion of gender equality where it is incumbent on public authorities to have due regard to the need to eliminate unlawful sex discrimination and harassment (including for transsexual people) and to promote equality of opportunity between men and women;
- Gender reassignment - where someone wishes to change gender;
Each and every business must have a policy that shows how the company will help people who wish to have a gender reassignment, how they are going to treat people who raise a complaint that is based on sexual harassment or where pay rates are lower because of the gender of the individual. It will cover flexible working or part time workers, or people on maternity/paternity leave. It will also be legal to discriminate positively in certain circumstances e.g. where a place is occupied for the purposes of an organised religion, and the facilities are restricted to men in order to comply with the doctrines of that religion or to avoid offending the religious leanings of a significant number of its followers. These issues must be addressed in the policy and laid out equitably for everyone to understand.
SMP Consultancy can provide advice and guidance on all aspects of the Equality Act. If you're in any doubt about your responsibilities then please call me or email me... Next month we will examine Pregnancy & Maternity. |
| Inspirational Person - Siobhan Parker | |  Some time ago I felt that I had a poor sense of balance and put this down to a weakness in my left leg! I started to attend a gym with a view to strengthening my leg, but alas nothing seemed to work... friends were even thinking that I was hitting the sherry a bit too much ;-)...
I decided to seek medical attention and following a series of tests, some not very nice at all, I was finally diagnosed with having MS (Multiple Sclerosis). Read more... |
| Census 2011 - recruiting now... | |
 We featured an article back in May issue regarding the recruitment of local people to assist with the 2011 Census. Capita Resourcing has now started the recruitment process for Census field staff on behalf of the ONS.
Many census jobs will be available over the next year and ONS is keen to work with Colchester residents and community groups due to their vast local knowledge. I have attached here the job descriptions for three roles...
For further information and if you would like to learn more about the Census and how you can be involved you can visit the official 2011 Census website by clicking on the logo above. |
| London 2012 - disabled volunteers apply now... | |  The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) will be launching their volunteer programme this year. Applications to become a London 2012 Games Maker volunteer will open to the general public on the 15th September - however, as LOCOG recognises the importance of diversity and inclusion throughout its workforce, as part of the early application launch for specialist roles in July 2010 - Deaf and disabled people, and those with a long-term health condition are also being provided with early access to the application form.
Read more... |
| Disability discrimination for the non-disabled? | | I came upon this article from a recent issue of Palmers Solicitors newsletter...
Can an employer be liable for disability discrimination even if the complaining employee is not disabled? Until a landmark case was decided by the Employment Appeal Tribunal in October 2009 the answer to the above question would have been "no". However, the case of Coleman has now left the door open to claims for "associative discrimination" to be brought by carers of disabled persons. Read more... |
| Fairer insurance for female-owned businesses | | For years the insurance industry has accepted that there are differences between men and women when it comes to driving - women are proven to be safer drivers and so their insurance premiums are lower.
But motoring isn't the only area of insurance where differences between the sexes affect the level of risk they represent to an insurance company.
Claims figures averaged across the insurers that feature in the SimplyBusiness.co.uk business insurance comparison engine show that women not only make fewer claims on their business insurance than men, but that the value of those claims is considerably lower.
And no! Its not discriminatory against men! - Read more |
| And Finally - Blind Football World Cup 2010... | | |
Well unfortunately our boys didn't win, but they did get through to the 3rd place play-off, only losing to China by just a single goal. For those of you who are interested, Brazil beat Spain to lift the trophy for the third time.
The tournament was a resounding success by all accounts... Tournament Director Jon Dutton said: "Undoubtedly the best team in the competition won". "The whole tournament has exceeded everyone's expectations. We have seen great crowds, fantastic coverage and the most incredible blind football".
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