Equalities Duty

Our commitment to equality

Everyone should expect to be treated with respect, to be treated fairly and to have the opportunity to reach their potential.  National Museums Scotland is committed to promoting equality and ensuring that no-one is denied opportunities or is disadvantaged through discrimination, prejudice or exclusion due to factors such as race, disability, gender, age, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, religion or belief and pregnancy/maternity.

As part of our visitor programming we take into the account the needs of all our potential visitors and look at them as individuals; we do not make assumptions about them.  From exhibitions to galleries; from workshops to tours and from events to our website, we hope to ensure that across all of our museums there is something that will appeal to our audiences.   We have a proven track record in audience engagement and ongoing collaboration with a number of organisations, for example Artlink and Project Ability.  

This commitment to equality and diversity is also reflected in our employment policies and practices, where consultation is key to all new policy development.

The Equalities Duty: background

In 2007 we published three Equality Schemes and Action Plans for disability, gender and race.  During that time, we have implemented a range of new policies, procedures and programmes to ensure that we are meeting the needs of our diverse audiences, staff and volunteers.

The Equality Act 2010 replaced the existing anti-discrimination laws with a single Act and came into force on 1 October 2010.  The Act simplifies, strengthens and harmonises the existing legislation to provide a new discrimination law which protects individuals from unfair treatment and promotes a fair and more equal society.  It includes a new public sector Equality Duty that brings together the three existing duties on disability, gender and race and extends coverage to age, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, religion or belief and pregnancy/maternity.

The Equality Duty consists of a general duty, set out in the Act itself, and specific duties imposed through regulations. 

The general duty under the Act states that we need to give due regard to the following:

• Eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation.
• Advance equality of opportunity between different groups.
• Foster good relations between different groups.

In addition to the general duties, Scottish Ministers have the power to impose specific duties on relevant Scottish public bodies, including National Museums Scotland.  The Scottish Government has issued a consultation document to set out their plans for specific duties for relevant public bodies.  These duties are scheduled to come into force in April 2011.

You can see our details of our new Single Equality Scheme here.