News and Events

Harriet Harman paves way for more diversity legislation - Greg Pitcher

Article from Personnel Today Website • 11 September 2008  

Equalities minister Harriet Harman today paved the way for yet another raft of workforce diversity laws next year....

With the ink barely dry on the draft Equalities Bill,Harman announced that a body was being set up to decide what more needed to be done in a year's time. She told delegates at theTUC conference in Brighton: "I am setting up the National Equality Panel, which will chart where we have made progress during the past 10 years, and where we need to make much more progress."

London School of Economics professor John Hills will chair the new panel, and is expected to involve trade unions in its work. Harman said: "I know that he is already working with the TUC and will expect the trade unions to be playing an important part in his work.

"He will report to government after 12 months, and then that will be able to lay the basis for even stepping further forward on the important work to tackle inequality and to bring forward social justice."

The Equalities Bill will bring in a range of new diversity rules if it is passed through parliament in its current form early next year. Tribunals will be given power to recommend that organisations change their equality policies, while private firms bidding for state work will have to publish diversity statistics.
 

Jobs list could curb migration: Skilled occupations include maths and science teachers - Lucy Phillips

Article from PM Online Website • 11 September 2008 

A list of skilled occupation shortages to curb the number of foreign workers from outside the EU coming to work in the UK has been published.

The list, which includes maths and science teachers, which advises on immigration policy. The government will now decide whether or not to accept the recommendations, and publish a final list next month.

If accepted, the list would reduce the number of UK jobs open to migrants by 30 per cent from 1 million to 700,000. It forms part of tier 2 of the new points-based system, for which skilled non-EU migrants must also have employer sponsorship and a satisfactory grasp of English to enter the UK.

MAC chair Professor David Metcalf said the list “breaks new ground in combining detailed data analysis with evidence from employers within a consistent and robust economic framework”.

“Our recommendations achieve the right balance between the needs of individual employers and those of the UK labour market and economy in the long term,” added MAC member Dr Diane Coyle.