Public authorities and the public sector 

On this page

• What is a public authority?
  
• Being a supplier to the public sector
  
• Front-line public sector staff
  

 

What is a public authority?

When we talk about a ‘public authority’, we mean any organisation, authority or institution operating within the public sector. This covers everything from government departments to primary schools, local libraries and the NHS. There are around 45,000 public authorities in Britain of varying size and shape.

Each piece of British legislation on equality and human rights contains details of exactly which public authorities it applies to. The information contained on this site is generally applicable. But to know if your organisation is covered by a particular Act, you may have to read it.

Many parts of the public sector (listed below) have specific responsibilities or specific exceptions.

• Central government
• Local government
• Health and care
• Housing and accommodation
• Criminal justice system
• Schools and other educational institutions
• Transport

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Being a supplier to the public sector

Some organisations that are not actually part of the public sector may count as public authorities (for the purposes of anti-discrimination legislation) because they carry out ‘functions of a public nature’. A contract with a public authority to provide services to the public or a section of the public, for instance, may constitute functions of a public nature.

Public authorities commission many services from contractors in the private and voluntary sectors. For example:

• construction and maintenance work
• supply of equipment
• internal functions like payroll, cleaning or IT support
• services provided directly to a section of the public, such as:
• transport of pupils to school, of prisoners to court or disabled or elderly people to day
• care centres
• school meals and home care services
• residential care
• parking enforcement
• refuse collection, and
• leisure services.

If a contract requires an organisation to carry out public functions, that organisation would count as a public authority while it performs those functions, even if it is a private company.

This would mean that the contractor is likely to be bound by the equality and human rights responsibilites that apply to its public sector client. The public authority that contracts it is still bound by those responsibilities: the organisations share the duties.

The duties of public authorities apply all along the public sector supply chain. They are also relevant to public–private partnerships and private finance initiatives.

Find out more about procurement and the equality duties at the following links.

Procurement and the race equality duty
Procurement and the disability equality duty
Procurement and the gender equality duty

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Front-line public sector staff

Those working most closely with the public, for instance in health, care, education, transport, housing, police, social services, social security and the justice system need to consider carefully how being a public authority affects their roles, and their own responsibility to take account of service users’ human rights and equality entitlements.

Employees of public authorities should receive appropriate training that equips them to fulfil their responsibilities related to equality and human rights. In their race equality schemes, for example, public authorities must set out their arrangements for training all staff in connection with their general and specific duties to promote race equality.

The other parts of this section contain details of the general and specific equality duties, and how human rights applies to public authorities. There are links to resources produced by the three former equality commissions and guides produced by the British Institute of Human Rights on applying a human rights framework to public services.

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