by Rebecca Hilsenrath
Published: 02 Nov 2018
Last week, we made available our state of the nation review of equality and human rights, Is Britain Fairer? 2018, revealing the major challenges facing society today. It found deteriorating access to justice, rising child poverty and the risk of a ‘two-speed Britain’ with some groups being left behind.
Our report sets out recommendations for improvement, and we very much hope that policy-makers, governments, businesses and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) will use this evidence base in their own work to bring about much-needed change.
Today we are asking for your views on our draft Strategic Plan for 2019 to 2022.
We have used the findings from ‘Is Britain Fairer? 2018’, from the UN’s regular reporting on the UK’s performance on human rights, from scanning the horizon for emerging trends, and from conversations with stakeholders to propose a list of issues on which to focus our work over the coming period.
This is far from being a final plan – and this is where we need you.
This is far from being a final plan – and this is where we need you.
We want to hear from a wide range of people across England, Scotland and Wales who are interested in our work and, like us, want to see a Britain where everyone gets an equal chance to thrive.
Equality and human rights touch almost every aspect of life – a person might experience discrimination or a breach of their human rights anywhere from their workplace to their local shop, from their child’s school to their GP’s surgery.
The list of challenges that we could address is long and prioritising these will not be easy, but it is essential if we are to use our powers to make a real difference. We therefore need your help to make difficult decisions about where to focus our resources in order to achieve lasting change.
Our aim is to work on fewer areas and over a longer period, ensuring we tackle the issues root and branch. We want to prioritise issues that can be most robustly addressed through use of our unique compliance and enforcement powers. We also need to ensure our work is balanced across both equality and human rights issues, and improves the lives of people with different protected characteristics.
As Britain’s national equality body with responsibility for protecting and promoting human rights, it is vital that we leave room in our plan to react quickly and effectively to emerging issues of national importance.
Doing this over the past year has allowed us to highlight the human rights challenges of the Grenfell Tower fire, and to gather evidence in the light of the #MeToo movement and make strong recommendations to end to sexual harassment at work.
We are keen to get your feedback on the type of activities that would bring about change
You will see in our draft plan that we have included ideas for how we can bring about change.
We are keen to get your feedback on the type of activities which would, in your view, help us to achieve this.
Our consultation ends on Monday 7 January and there are lots of ways for you to respond.
After this deadline, we will carefully analyse all of your feedback and what this will mean for the final version of our Strategic Plan, which we will publish in April 2019.
We welcome your thoughts on how we can continue to make Britain somewhere we can all be proud to live, standing up for freedom, compassion and justice in our changing times.