The scenario provided in the assessment brief. Kelburn Care Group is a large not-for-profit provider of health and social care services employing 3,200 people across 41 registered services. It is governed by a board of trustees, delivers under NHS and local authority contracts and one Private Finance Initiative agreement, and works with charitable partners, regulators and suppliers. Funding agreements require the organisation to evidence that it upholds equality, diversity and inclusion principles and complies with legislative requirements. Organisational detail is illustrative and anonymised.
Table of Contents
Task 1a: Written account on legal and organisational approaches to equality, diversity and inclusion
AC 1.1 Examine the impact of legislative requirements on public and private organisations with respect to equality, diversity and inclusion
The Equality Act 2010 as the common foundation. The Act consolidates prior legislation and protects nine characteristics: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation. It prohibits direct and indirect discrimination, harassment, victimisation, discrimination arising from disability and failure to make reasonable adjustments. The impact on all organisations is that employment decisions must be capable of objective justification, and the burden of proof shifts to the employer once a claimant establishes facts from which discrimination could be inferred.
The reasonable adjustment duty has particular operational weight at Kelburn. It is anticipatory in respect of service provision, meaning the organisation must consider in advance what disabled service users will require rather than responding to individual requests. For a care provider this reaches building access, communication formats and how support is delivered, and it is a continuing duty rather than a one-off compliance exercise.
The divergence between public and private duties. Public authorities and those exercising public functions are additionally subject to the Public Sector Equality Duty under section 149, requiring due regard to eliminating discrimination, advancing equality of opportunity and fostering good relations. Specific duties require publication of equality information and objectives. The practical impact is procedural: decisions must be evidenced, which is why equality impact assessment exists as a documented process in the public sector and is largely absent from private organisations.
Kelburn sits in an instructive position. As a third-sector body it is not itself a public authority, but where it delivers NHS-commissioned services it exercises public functions and the duty applies to that activity. Commissioners also import the requirement contractually, so the practical effect is that Kelburn operates to public-sector standards without the statutory obligation arising directly.
Reporting obligations. Employers with 250 or more employees must publish gender pay gap data annually. The Employment Rights Act 2025 extends this by requiring large employers to publish equality action plans alongside the figures, which converts reporting from disclosure into a requirement to state intended action. On 25 March 2026 the government published its consultation response and draft legislation confirming mandatory ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting for employers with 250 or more staff, with a minimum of ten employees in a group before a comparison must be reported. This is not yet in force and is unlikely to bite before 2027, but the impact on organisations is immediate: data collection systems and employee trust in disclosure take years to build, so preparation cannot begin when the duty commences.