6 Professional power and Public Sector Equality Duty

Earlier you looked at the accountability of local public service professionals to you as a citizen and a leader through your elected officials, and the consultative mechanism open to members of the public. Additionally, you explored how you can hold professionals accountable through the organisational complaints mechanism and how you can complain through professional and oversight bodies.

There is another route to accountability via the equality and human rights legislation provisions under the Public Sector Equality Duty. As a leader, you are encouraged to learn more about the provisions, check out what works and what doesn’t in terms of implementation, and explore how you can hold local public services to deliver their service equitably to all the communities.

As you acquaint yourself with the legal provisions, you are encouraged to question them, think about how the local public services assess their performance, and consider whether the community and you, as a leader, can hold them to account through such mechanisms. Ask yourself questions like: are you doing enough to influence local public services’ practices, ensuring that they deliver on their Public Sector Equality Duty and are transparent in gathering evidence to demonstrate compliance?

You will note that there are variations across the four UK nations. If required, you can find out more information through the statutory bodies responsible for implementing the legislation.