Third Sector reports: Charity Commission publishes further guidance on the Equality Act.
Equality Law has Charity Commission issues new Equality Act guidance.
New guidance has been issued by the Charity Commission which sets out its views on the application of the new charities exception in the Equality Act and the circumstances in which a charity may restrict its benefits to a group defined by reference to a protected characteristic.
The Charity Commission advice is here: Equality Act guidance for charities: Restricting who can benefit from charities .
This may be of interest to those who have been following the case of Catholic Care.
I think there is a very important question to be asked of the Government regarding the legislation:
Is a Local Authority, presumably licensed by the government to allocate resources to various charitable organisations; allowed to discriminate in its choice of agency – on the basis of that organisation’s discrimination against e.g. LGBT foster parents?
This is not a frivolous question. It is an attempt to find out whether the Local Authority has the right to choose whom to trust with the allocation of foster-children. If it does, then it is surely up to the Local Authority to make that choice.
Father Ron Smith asks on Wednesday, 7 September 2011 at 1:30am BST “Is a Local Authority, presumably licensed by the government to allocate resources to various charitable organisations; allowed to discriminate in its choice of agency – on the basis of that organisation’s discrimination against e.g. LGBT foster parents?” In its most recent judgment on this case the first tier appellate tribunal concludes thus: “62. Finally, the Tribunal notes that the Public Sector Equality duty imposed by s.149 (1) of the Equality Act 2010 imposes a duty on public bodies to pay due regard to the need to eliminate unlawful… Read more »
Thank you, Martin, for that clarification.