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RACE RELATIONS (AMENDMENT) ACT 2000

1. The Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 came into force on 2 April 2001 as a result of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry. The new Act amends the Race Relations Act 1976 and strengthens its application to public authorities in several important ways:-

· It extends the scope of the 1976 Act to cover areas that were previously excluded, and makes it unlawful for public authorities to discriminate on racial grounds in carrying out any of their functions.


· It places a general statutory duty on a wide range of public authorities to promote racial equality and prevent racial discrimination.


· It gives the Home Secretary the power to make Orders imposing specific duties on all or some public authorities bound by the general duty. These specific duties will be enforceable by the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE), serving compliance notices, backed up by Court Orders, if necessary.


· It gives the CRE powers to issue statutory codes of practice, providing practical guidance to public authorities on how to fulfil both their general and specific duties to promote racial equality.


· The critical feature of the new duty is that it will be enforceable. If the CRE is satisfied that a public authority is not complying with its specific duties, the CRE will be able to serve a compliance notice. This will require the Authority to comply with its duties and inform the CRE of the measures it has taken. If necessary, the CRE can ask the County Court to order the Authority to comply.

2. In particular, the Authority was required to prepare and publish a Race Equality Scheme by 31 May 2002, setting out how it plans to meet the general and other specific duties contained in the Act to promote race equality. The Authority has a two-fold responsibility to meet the new duties in respect of its own functions and to ensure that the Force also meets the new duties. Both the Authority and the Constabulary have published their Schemes which are available on their respective web sites.

3. The Authority's Race Equality Scheme is a living document which will need to be regularly revisited and revised to meet changing developments and needs. Opportunities will also be taken to review the Scheme alongside those of other Police Authorities in order to identify good practice to assist the Authority in meeting its race equality duties.

4IR08702