May announces creation of new inequalities body
Nina Jacobs
Friday, July 12, 2019
The government is to gather evidence on inequalities affecting vulnerable children and families through a new independent body set up to tackle social injustice and create a fairer society.
The Office for Tackling Injustices (OfTI) will use this data on issues such as race, gender, poverty and disability to identify key barriers affecting specific groups as well as gathering new evidence which could previously have been unreliable or not available.
The OfTI will follow a similar approach taken by the Race Disparity Audit which uses data to analyse how a person's ethnicity affects their experiences of public services, the government said.
It will examine inequalities in areas such as socio-ecomomic background, ethnicity, gender, disability and sexual orientation to find out if certain groups of people are being unfairly discriminated against.
Areas such as housing and employment will be analysed for disparities around gender and disability, it added.
This could include lower entry level pay for women entering the workplace with higher qualifications than men. Or, for example, disabled people renting in the private sector for whom only a third (32 per cent) said their accommodation was suitable.
Announcing the launch of the OfTI today Prime Minister Theresa May said "deep-seated societal injustice" required a long-term focus.
"Since becoming Prime Minister, I have challenged the injustices which still exist in our society through the power of data - from our world-leading gender pay gap reporting to the Race Disparity Unit - and I have demanded that if disparities cannot be explained, they must be changed.
"I am proud of what we have achieved to make the UK a more just society. But there is more to be done now and in the years to come, if we are truly to say that this is a country which works for everyone - no matter who they are or where they're from.
"That's why the Office for Tackling Injustices will go further, using the power of data, gathered from extensive sources, to shine a spotlight on key injustices and provide the catalyst for better policy solutions. By holding government and wider society to account, we can create lasting change," she said.
Minister for women and equalities Penny Mordaunt added: "We know that high quality data and evidence are important tools in tackling inequality.
"We need to know how well we are tackling injustice and the impact on people's lives."
Simon Woolley, director of Operation Black Vote and chairman of the Race Disparity Audit, said the OfTI would objectively assess the government's progress towards achieving social justice.
"I will do all I can to support and champion this new Office, which I believe will become a shining beacon that not only shines necessary lights on those injustices the Prime Minister cares about such as gender equality, social mobility and race inequality, but also a powerful bulwark for change," he said.
