Legislative Framework

The 2010 Equality Act provides the context for this report. The protected characteristic outlined within the Equality Act 2010 are:

• • age
  • disability
  • gender reassignment
  • marriage and civil partnership
  • pregnancy and maternity
  • race
  • religion and belief
  • sex
  • sexual orientation.

We also recognise there will be other groups who find themselves on the periphery of education and society e.g. due to socio-economic disadvantage, being care experienced, being a young carer or for various other reasons. To ensure New College Lanarkshire (NCL) truly creates an environment reflective of the communities we serve, we are committed to adopting an intersectional approach to understand the many facets of people’s identities, privileges and lived experiences.

The Equality Act 2010 also placed a general duty, known as the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED), on listed public bodies (including NCL), in the exercise of their functions, to have due regard to the need to:

• • Eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment, victimisation and other conduct prohibited by the Act;
  • Advance equality of opportunity between people from different protected characteristic groups;
  • Foster good relations between people from different protected characteristic groups, tackling prejudice and promoting understanding between people from different groups.

In addition to this general duty under the Equality Act 2010, further specific duties were placed on Scottish public bodies by the Scottish Parliament. The following duties are addressed in this report:

• • reporting on Board diversity information;
  • gathering, using and publishing of employee information;
  • publishing gender pay gap information;
  • publishing of Equal Pay Statement;
  • progress made on mainstreaming the general equality duty;
  • progress on the college’s Equality Outcomes 2021-2025;
  • and publishing a set of Equality Outcomes 2025-2029.