Department for the Economy Equality

Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 (the Act) requires a public authority, in carrying out its functions relating to Northern Ireland, to have due regard to the need to promote equality of opportunity between:

  • persons of different religious belief, political opinion, racial group, age, marital status or sexual orientation
  • men and women generally
  • persons with a disability and persons without
  • persons with dependants and persons without

The Department for the Economy (DfE) will endeavour to ensure that the necessary resources, in terms of people, time and money, are in place to meet the Section 75 duties and to mainstream equality.

The department has had a specialist Equality Unit since 1995 and had already developed considerable equality research, evaluation and statistical expertise to inform policy development. Awareness raising and training have also been constant features of the Department’s efforts to ensure the mainstreaming of equality.

Without prejudice to these obligations, a public authority is also required, in carrying out its functions, to have regard to the desirability of promoting good relations between persons of different religious belief, political opinion or racial group.

Schedule 9 of the Act requires each public authority to produce an Equality Scheme stating how it proposes to fulfill the duties.

New reports and screening documents for DfE will be added as they become available. The documents below relate to the Department for Enterprise, Trade and Investment (DETI) and the Department for Employment and Learning (DEL) which merged functions to become DfE.

Annual reports to the Equality Commissioner

Annual progress reports on section 75 of the NI Act 1998 and section 49A of the Disability Discrimination (Northern Ireland) Order 2006.

Disability action plan

Under Section 49B of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, the department is required to submit to the Equality Commission a disability action plan showing how it proposes to fulfill its equality duties.

Audit of inequalities

Section 75 guidance issued by the Equality Commission for Northern recommends that public authorities undertake an audit of inequalities to identify inequalities, across the 9 Section 75 categories, relevant to its functions and to inform the development of an action plan to promote equality of opportunity and good relations.

Equality scheme

In our equality scheme we set out how the Department proposes to fulfil the Section 75 statutory duties.

Equality screening

The purpose of policy scoping is to help prepare the background and context and set out the aims and objectives for the policy, being screened. At this stage, scoping the policy will help identify potential constraints as well as opportunities and will help the policy maker work through the screening process on a step by step basis.

Public authorities should remember that the Section 75 statutory duties apply to internal policies (relating to people who work for the authority), as well as external policies (relating to those who are, or could be, served by the authority). 

DfE policies screened during 2024

DfE policies screened during 2023

DfE policies screened during 2022

DfE policies screened during 2021

DfE policies screened during 2020

DfE policies screened during 2019

DfE policies screened during 2018

DfE policies screened during 2017

DfE policies screened during 2016

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