Tax & Accounting News

Equality guidance ‘too complex’ for small firms

29/04/2010

Guidelines drawn up to help small businesses comply with new regulations introduced under the Equality Act 2010 may be too complex for many of them to make sense of, a leading business group has warned.

The act is intended to bring together existing anti-discrimination laws in one place, with many of its provisions due to come into effect this October and the remainder being phased in over the following three years.

However, the Forum of Private Business (FPB) has claimed the guidelines – which run to some 300 pages – will leave some firms unsure of their obligations, due both to their length and some of the ambiguous wording used.

FPB chief executive Phil Orford has written to Trevor Phillips, chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which compiled the guidelines, voicing concerns that the document appeared to have been written with only large businesses in mind.

Mr Orford claimed that the guidelines, in their present form, could lead to increased costs for small businesses as they either over-complied with the legislation or inadvertently failed to comply with certain provisions, triggering tribunal claims.