Core guidance: Voluntary charity and community organisations

Making sure you know what equality law says you must do as an organisation providing goods, facilities or services to the public

First, use this list to make sure you know in general what equality law says you must do.

Make sure you know what is meant by:

• age
• disability
• gender reassignment
• pregnancy and maternity (which includes breastfeeding)
• race
• religion or belief
• sex
• sexual orientation.

Then you will know how you fit into each of these protected characteristics.

Be aware that sometimes, charities and religion or belief organisations can decide who to provide services to on the basis of a person’s protected characteristics. You can read more about this later on in this guide.

But the following list will help you to know how you must and must not treat clients and service users in most situations.

Unlawful discrimination, in other words, treating some people worse than others because of a protected characteristic can take a number of different forms:

• You must not treat a person worse than someone else because of a protected characteristic (this is called direct discrimination).

• You must not do something to someone which has (or would have) a worse impact on them and other people who share a particular protected characteristic on people who do not share that characteristic. Unless you can show that what you have done is objectively justified, this will be what is called indirect discrimination. ‘Doing something’ can include making a decision, or applying a rule or way of doing things.

• You must not treat a disabled person unfavourably because of something connected to their disability where you cannot show that what you are doing is objectively justified (this is called discrimination arising from disability). This only applies if you know or could reasonably be expected to know that the person is a disabled person.

• You must not treat a person worse than someone else because they are associated with a person who has a protected characteristic.

• You must not treat a person worse because you incorrectly think they have a protected characteristic (perception).

• You must not treat a person badly or ‘victimise’ them because they have complained about discrimination or helped someone else complain or done anything to uphold their own or someone else's equality law rights.

• You must not harass a person.

Note: Even where the behaviour does not come within the equality law definition of harassment (for example, because it is related to religion or belief or sexual orientation), it is likely still to be unlawful direct discrimination because you are giving the service to the person on worse terms than you would give someone who did not have the same protected characteristic.

• In addition, to make sure that disabled people are able to use your services as far as is reasonable to the same standard as non-disabled people, you must make reasonable adjustments. You cannot wait until a disabled person wants to use your services, but must think in advance about what people with a range of impairments might reasonably need, such as people who have a visual impairment, a hearing impairment, a mobility impairment, or a learning disability.

Read more about making reasonable adjustments to remove barriers for disabled people.

Because of a protected characteristic, you and anyone working for you:

• Must not refuse to serve someone or refuse to take them on as a client.

• Must not stop serving or working for someone if you still serve or work for other service users or clients who do not have the same protected characteristic in the same circumstances.

• Must not give someone a service of a worse quality or in a worse way than you would usually provide the service.

• Must not give someone worse terms of service than you would normally offer.

• Must not put them at any other disadvantage.

You can still tell your service users or clients what standards of behaviour you want from them - for example, behaving with respect towards your staff and to other service users or clients.

Sometimes, how someone behaves may be linked to a protected characteristic.

If you set standards of behaviour for your customers or clients which have a worse impact on people with a particular protected characteristic than on people who do not have that characteristic, you need to make sure that you can objectively justify what you have done. Otherwise, it will be indirect discrimination.

If you do set standards of behaviour, you must make reasonable adjustments to them for disabled people and avoid discrimination arising from disability. 

Check out: What does equality law mean for you when you’re providing services to the public.

Equality good practice: what you can do if you want to do more than equality law requires

This guide tells you what equality law says you must and must not do to avoid unlawful discrimination.
If you want to be sure you are doing this, it is a good idea to:

• use an equality policy to help you check that you have thought about equality in the way you plan what you do and how you do it, and
• give equality training to everyone in your organisation who deals with service users or clients, to make sure they know the right and wrong ways to behave.