Largely speaking, the law on employment and pensions is the same in Northern Ireland as in the rest of the United Kingdom. The key difference relates to the law on equality and discrimination. There are two principal areas where Northern Irish law is substantially different in principle as well as detail, and about which employers need to be aware. The first concerns the detailed provisions requiring employers of more than 10 people in Northern Ireland to register with the Equality Commission, maintain detailed monitoring information on applicants/appointees, file an annual return with the Equality Commission and not less than every three years carry out a detailed review of whether or not the employer is providing equality of opportunity. The second area concerns the obligation under section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 (the Act) which requires public authorities to have due regard to the need to promote equality of opportunity between various different groups on grounds of:
(i) religious belief;
(ii) political opinion;
(iii) race;
(iv) age;
(v) disability;and
(vi) persons having dependents or not.
Both Schedule 9 of the Act and the Equality Commission itself provide guidance for the review of policies, the necessity for public consultation and the carrying out of an Equality Impact Assessment (EQIA). The implications extend beyond public authorities. Increasingly, public authorities are seeking to impose obligations such as these on private sector employers which provide services to the public sector under contractual arrangements such as PFI/PPP.
An EQIA is the systematic analysis of a policy by a public authority to determine the differential impact of that policy on relevant groups in order to ascertain whether the implementation of the policy is likely to have an adverse effect. The assessment is done in the context of nine equality categories - religious belief, political opinion, racial group, age, marital status, sexual orientation, gender, disability and dependency. If it is decided that the policy has an adverse impact, the public authority must consider alternative policies which might better achieve the promotion of equality of opportunity or measures which might be employed to mitigate adverse impact. The key when managing such issues on a PFI/PPP project is ensuring that the information and consultation processes are considered when drawing up a realistic procurement timetable. Depending on the nature of the transaction, an EQIA can take as long as one year to complete, with the recommended minimum time for receipt of responses being twelve weeks. Clearly this can have a significant impact upon timescales.