The Fawcett Society is seeking leave to judicially review the recent UK emergency budget over its failure to conduct an equality impact assessment. Fawcett is the UK's leading campaigning charity for equality between women and men, with campaigns on women's representation in politics and public life; pay, pensions and poverty; valuing caring work; and the treatment of women in the justice system.
The charity claims that the UK government failed to assess the way in which the budget proposals will impact differently on men and women, and thus is in breach of duty of Gender Equality under the Sex Discrimination Act 1975.
Chief Executive of Fawcett, Ceri Goddard, commented that it is vital in times of economic crisis that consideration is given to safeguard women's rights. She continued, ""Women already earn less, own less, and have less control over their finances than men. Yet some £5.8 billion of the £8 billion of cuts contained in the budget will be taken from women, who will also be worst affected by the coming cuts to public services - 65 per cent of public sector workers are women".
Samantha Mangwana, of Russell Jones & Walker solicitors, acting for Fawcett stated that immediate action must be taken where an equality impact assessment signals a risk of discrimination, and clearly if such an assessment does not even take place, "a public authority cannot start to consider what steps to take to mitigate any inequality".
To view the press release from the Fawcett Society website, please follow this link.
For a detailed explanation of the legal framework of the "Gender Equality Duty" by Samantha Mangwana, of Russell Jones & Walker solicitors, please see attached.