Wales Impact Report 2023 to 2024

I am pleased to present this report of the impact of our work in Wales.

This is the second year of our current strategic plan. The development of our next has already started. The future direction of our work will be informed by ‘Is Wales Fairer’, our equality and human rights report, which we launched at the Senedd in autumn 2023. We have identified some improvements, but extensive work is clearly needed in many areas to make Wales the truly inclusive nation we all wish for.

During the last year, we supported successful legal cases of discrimination against members of the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller community and issued menopause and sexual harassment guidance. We worked on improving access to education for disabled people and engaged with statutory bodies to improve their understanding and compliance with the Public Sector Equality Duty.

These achievements have only been possible through effective partnership working and stakeholder engagement across sectors. This year our collaborative approach to regulation and advice saw us build on the relationships with key stakeholders such as the Older People’s Commissioner for Wales and the Welsh Local Government Association. We also began to build new relationships with Medr, Llais and the Centre for Digital Public Services.

None of this would have been possible without the hard work of our small Wales team. I would like to take this opportunity thank them for their unflinching passion and commitment. Thanks also to the Wales Committee for their oversight and for supportively sharing their vast knowledge and experience with the Wales team.    

This year we will continue this approach, using all our powers and influence to create a fairer and more equal Wales.

Martyn Jones, Interim Chair of the Wales Committee

We are Britain’s equality regulator. We were established under the Equality Act 2006 to protect and enforce the laws that ensure fairness, dignity and respect. We are independent of the UK, Scottish and Welsh governments. As Great Britain’s globally accredited ‘A’ status National Human Rights Institution, we have a full human rights mandate in England and Wales and in Scotland in relation to matters reserved to the UK Parliament.

Our job is to challenge discrimination and protect people’s rights across Wales, Scotland and England. We do this by:

• upholding and explaining the laws that protect people’s rights and freedoms
• enforcing the Equality Act 2010 across Great Britain
• preventing and challenging discrimination, so that everyone gets a fair chance in life, and
• protecting people’s rights, so that everyone is treated fairly, with dignity and respect

We adhere to the Hampton Code of Practice for Regulators, which outlines five principles of good regulation.

These are:

• proportionality
• accountability
• consistency
• transparency, and
• targeting.

Further information on our approach to regulation and our regulatory objectives is on our website.

This report reflects on the achievements and impact made by our Wales team in 2023–24. It focuses on our six priority areas set out by our strategic plan for 2022–25. These are:

1. Equality in a changing workplace
2. Equality for children and young people
3. Upholding rights and equality in health and social care
4. Addressing the equality and human rights impacts of digital services and artificial intelligence
5. Fostering good relations and promoting respect between groups
6. Ensuring an effective legal framework to protect equality and human rights

Through these areas of focus we have continued to deliver our commitments across our regulatory framework.  

Key impacts of our work in Wales this year:

1. Publishing our state of the nation Equality and Human Rights Monitor: Is Wales Fairer? 2023 report and our key findings being reflected in the equality objectives of public bodies in Wales.
2. Challenging race discrimination through supporting successful legal cases in Wales.
3. The Welsh Government and public bodies taking action to embed the recommendations of our inquiry reports into racial inequality in the health and social care workforce and challenging adult social care decisions.
4. In line with our advice, the Welsh Government strengthened the requirements on Medr to promote equality of opportunity, use data effectively and reduce attainment gaps between groups.
5. Following our engagement and advice, the Welsh Government strengthened the national framework for care and support requirements for social care commissioning, to address inequality.

Our year in numbers

• 2 legal cases supported
• 30 compliance cases responded to
• 17 consultation responses submitted
• 2 oral evidence sessions to Senedd Committees
• 6 online events hosted
• 3 reports to human rights bodies

Equality and Human Rights Monitor: Is Wales Fairer? (2023)

In November 2023 we published our state of the nation report, the Equality and Human Rights Monitor: Is Wales Fairer?

The report focused on the nine characteristics that are protected by the Equality Act 2010. It highlights some areas of progress, such as:

• a greater diversity in public appointments
• a narrowing of the gender pay gap
• a narrowing of the employment gap between disabled and non- disabled people

However, our report showed that there are many areas where there is little progress and entrenched inequalities remain. Education attainment for disabled learners is falling behind England and Scotland. Poverty remains a persistent problem. We have seen an increase in racially and religiously aggravated offences at the same time as a reduction in the number of offences resulting in charge.

To launch the report, we held an event at the Senedd. It was well attended by Welsh Government ministers and members of the Senedd, as well as stakeholders from across the public sector and civil society.  

Public bodies are using the evidence within Is Wales Fairer? to set their equality objectives for 2024–28.

We have engaged extensively with stakeholders to highlight our key findings and encourage action on the inequalities exposed by the report.

We presented to over 80 policy officials at Welsh Government and ran a workshop with their Equality and Human Rights Division to inform the development of the Welsh Government’s equality objectives. We also presented our findings to the Welsh Government’s Budget Impact and Improvement Advisory Group, to inform decision making on the budget.

We held two webinars in June 2023, where we gave public bodies early sight of the report’s key findings. This helped inform the development of their equality objectives ahead of the April 2024 deadline.

We convened a round table with regulators, inspectorates and ombuds. This aimed to explore the role of our respective regulatory powers, including the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) and Socio-economic duty (SED). It also outlined how our work can help in addressing the persistent inequalities highlighted in the report.

We presented to the Board of Trustees at Cardiff Metropolitan

University on the findings of the report and their responsibilities under the PSED. We received positive feedback from the Chair.

We will continue to use this authoritative evidence-based report in our advice and engagement with organisations to support evidence-based policy making and to scrutinise progress on addressing inequalities.

Equality in a changing workplace

Treatment of lower-paid ethnic minority workers in health and social care inquiry

The Welsh Government has taken action to improve data on the health and social care workforce. This was a key recommendation in our inquiry into experiences from health and social care: treatment of lower-paid ethnic minority workers. We advised the Welsh Government officials on how to implement this recommendation.

The Welsh Government have established a new Workforce Race Equality Standard to monitor the experiences of people from ethnic minorities working in health and social care. This directly builds on key findings from our inquiry.

Disability Rights Taskforce

The Disability Rights Taskforce working group on employment and income strongly reflected our advice in the recommendations made to the Welsh Government to inform their Disability Equality Action Plan. Recommendation themes included:

• using procurement as a lever to embed positive employment practices for disabled people
• develop good practice for hybrid working
• action to address disability employment and pay gaps
• an evaluation of the impact of the Inclusive Apprenticeships plan

Menopause guidance

The Welsh Government promoted our menopause guidance through their Social Partnership Newsletter. The guidance provides practical tips for employers on making reasonable adjustments and fostering positive conversations about the menopause with their workers. It clarifies their legal obligations under the Equality Act 2010.

Guidance on sexual harassment 

Our guidance on sexual harassment has been shared and promoted widely by the Welsh Government. The guidance has been shared through the Welsh Government’s Fair Work website and newsletters and via the Business Wales networks. This secured a large private and public sector audience for our guidance. It offers employers a legal explanation and practical examples of how to tackle and respond effectively to sexual harassment in the workplace.

Social partnership

The Social Partnership Council (SPC) is considering establishing an equality subgroup following the introduction of the Social Partnerships and Public Procurement (Wales) Act. This reflects our advice and recommendation. The subgroup would ensure the SPC effectively considers the implications of its social partnership working advice to the Welsh Government for protected characteristic groups.

Equality for children and young people

Access to education for disabled children

We gave advice to a Senedd Committee on the human rights framework, in advance of its inquiry into education access for disabled children. The Committee then announced that its inquiry would use the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCPRD) as a frame of reference.

In developing our evidence for the inquiry, we met with fourteen key organisations. They raised concerns about the implementation of Additional Learning needs (ALN) provision. We highlighted the need for long-term sustainability of ALN provision.

We recommended that the concluding observations of the UNCRC were used to scrutinise Welsh Government action and that the PSED is used to increase access to school for disabled learners. We further recommended that policies to improve school attendance consider the barriers faced by children with protected characteristics.

Tertiary education

The Education Minister highlighted the need to use data effectively and reduce attainment gaps when the Welsh Government published a statement of strategic priorities for the new Commission for Tertiary Education and Research (known as Medr). These priorities closely reflect recommendations we made in our consultation response and advice to the Welsh Government. Medr’s strategic plan will now include these priorities.

Medr published its first strategic equality plan, which reflects the impact of our engagement with this new body. We provided advice so that they understand their obligations as a leading public body in Wales. Medr will soon be responsible for the strategy, funding and oversight of further education (including colleges and school sixth forms), higher education (including research and innovation), adult education and adult community learning, as well as apprenticeships and training.  

Following our advice, the Welsh Government’s consultation on the register of tertiary education providers: initial regulations, included key questions on equality. This led to evidence being gathered through the consultation the helped to ensure that the regulations were drafted to meet the three aims of the PSED. The inclusion of a question in Welsh Government consultations about the impact of proposals on equality has been our long-standing position.

The Welsh Government included a link to our resources on preventing hair discrimination in their updated school uniforms guidance, which is received by all schools in Wales. This followed our advice to the Education Minister.

As a result of our proportionate and effective compliance work, we ensured that all further education (FE) colleges in Wales had published Strategic Equality Plans (SEP) in compliance with the PSED. We wrote to five FE colleges who appeared to be non-compliant with the requirement to publish a strategic equality plan and equality objectives. This resulted in all taking action to address the issues identified.

We presented at two sessions for FE colleges, hosted by Colegau Cymru, to highlight their obligations under the PSED, including effective practice on Equality Impact Assessments.  We also shared key findings of our Equality and Human Rights Monitor: Is Wales Fairer? report.

Embedding equality into schools

We are working to increase the compliance of schools in Wales with their PSED duties. We published guidance for schools including primary, secondary, and special schools in Wales, as well as Pupil Referral Units.

We promoted that guidance by writing to all schools, highlighting the need to have equality objectives and a current strategic equality plan in place by April 2024. We presented to over 100 headteachers in Carmarthenshire to raise awareness of the guidance and key education findings from our Equality and Human Rights Monitor: Is Wales Fairer? report. Our resources will support schools’ compliance with the PSED.

The Welsh Government’s Community Focussed Schools: Community Engagement guidance and its Admission Appeals Code reflects the need for schools to embed the PSED when they are undertaking these activities. These inclusions demonstrate the impact of our consultation responses and advice to Welsh Government officials, who adopted the recommendations we made.

Upholding rights and equality in health and social care

Social care commissioning

Social care commissioning practices in Wales have been strengthened to reflect priorities including tackling inequality and respecting human rights. The Welsh Government’s newly published National Framework for the Commissioning of Care and Support in Wales Code of Practice was strengthened following advice we provided in the development of the draft code, and because of our response to their consultation.

The published code now requires commissioning practices to be standardised by tackling inequalities and fulfilling human rights obligations. This includes UN treaties, the PSED and the Socio-economic duty. Commissioners will be required to measure value by analysing complaints data, including by protected characteristics, which follows recommendations made in our inquiry into challenging adult social care decisions. Commissioners will also be required to embed equality into their procurement exercises.

Our advice has ensured that the new National Office for Care and Support will champion inclusive practices, with a focus on diversity and equality. The National Office aims to ensure compliance with national commissioning principles and standards, supporting commissioners and providers through the provision of a toolkit. We will continue to work with the National Office to develop a toolkit for commissioners on equality and human rights.

Inquiry into challenging adult social care decisions

Scrutiny of local authorities’ delivery of their social care duties has been strengthened. In response to our inquiry into challenging adult social care decisions, Care Inspectorate Wales committed to embed our recommendations into their inspection practices and review how local authorities are responding.  

In response to our inquiry recommendation, the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Care committed to further embedding the UN Convention on the Rights of Disabled People into guidance for social workers.

Local authorities in Wales have responded positively to our inquiry recommendations. They have made commitments to improve data collection on complaints and to address the communications needs of social care users more effectively.

Engagement with Llais

Llais, the new citizens advice body for health and social care in Wales, are seeking to embed the key findings of our inquiry into their work. We have developed a positive working relationship with this new organisation. The Board of Llais received a briefing about the key equality and human rights issues that they needed to consider and an overview of the PSED and their obligations.

Health service procurement

The Health Services Procurement (Wales) Bill was strengthened when the Deputy Minister for Social Partnerships accepted recommendations we made during the Bill consultation. We highlighted the need for the Welsh Government to provide leadership to health boards, trusts and local authorities commissioning care services. We also raised concerns about compliance with the PSED and the Equality Impact Assessment of the Bill. These points were subsequently addressed.

Addressing the equality and human rights impact of digital services and artificial intelligence

Guidance on AI and the PSED

Public sector professionals in Wales are more aware of how to apply equality legislation when developing the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in public services. We partnered with the Centre for Digital Public Services to deliver a webinar attended by 125 public sector professionals. It presented new ways of approaching equality when using AI in the public sector. We promoted our guidance for applying the PSED to the use of AI and shared learning on how local authorities in England and Scotland are approaching these issues.

Digital Public Service Standards

We advised the Centre for Digital Public Services (CDPS) on improving content on the Equality Act 2010 and the PSED within the service standards and supporting guidance. This work is ongoing and includes CDPS work on services assessment.

Digital by default

The Older People’s Commissioner for Wales guidance – GP Practices in Wales: A guide for Older People includes content relating the Equality Act, the reasonable adjustment duty and the Equality Advisory and Support Service, following our engagement and advice.

Fostering good relations and promoting respect between groups

Senedd reform

We provided expert advice to the Senedd Reform Bill Committee’s scrutiny of the Senedd Cymru (Electoral Candidates List) Bill. We highlighted concerns about potentially confusing language in the Bill. We also commented on its provisions to allow candidates to self-declare as to whether or not they are a woman for the purpose of  inclusion on quota lists. This may be incompatible with the Equality Act 2010. Our letter to the Committee was highlighted several times during scrutiny of the Bill by Senedd members and expert witnesses. It also received significant media attention.

The Local Government and Housing Committee’s report on the general principles of the Elections and Elected Bodies

(Wales) Bill reflected a number of our recommendations and highlighted our evidence. These recommendations included:

• calling for the Welsh Government to publish an Equality Impact Assessment of the Bill
• the Local Government Survey proposed in the Bill should reflect protected characteristics
• the information platform should be accessible to all  

Senedd inquiry into dignity and respect

We responded to the Senedd Inquiry into Dignity and Respect. Our response highlighted the need for parliaments and political parties to be at the forefront of creating an exemplar environment for those working within them. We referred to our technical guidance on sexual harassment and harassment at work and the importance of making policies more robust. This response builds on our 2018 recommendation that the Senedd puts in place an anti-harassment policy. We will monitor the response to our recommendations by the Standards of Conduct Committee.

Trans guidance for schools

We have provided expert advice to the Welsh Government on the development of their guidance for schools on trans issues.

Ensuring an effective legal framework to protect equality and human rights

Where we have undertaken specific work that corresponds most closely with one of our six strategic priorities, we have provided further detail under the relevant priority area.

Legal enforcement

An Irish traveller received a settlement following a race discrimination claim, with support from our Race Legal Support Fund. The individual was allegedly discriminated against when a public house in Cardiff refused to host a family christening party. Following the claim for direct discrimination, the pub committed to undertake equality and diversity training.

Regulating the Public Sector Equality Duty

Many public bodies in Wales have set equality objectives that commit to action to address socio-economic disadvantage and tackle inequalities highlighted in our Equality and Human Rights Monitor: Is Wales Fairer? report. This follows regulatory actions we took, including:

• writing to all public bodies to remind them of the obligations to set objectives by April 2024
• evidencing the issues by hosting webinars to share early key findings from our research
• held engagement events with colleges, local authorities and our Equality and Human Rights Exchange Network

Our regulatory interventions have led to all four Corporate Joint Committees (CJCs) taking action towards compliance with the PSED. We have:

• written to and engaged with CJCs to outline their obligations
• highlighted concerns about potential non-compliance to the Minister for Local Government
• worked with the Welsh Local Government Association (WLGA) to provide advice to these new bodies

Promoting and protecting human rights

As part of our role as an ‘A’ status National Human Rights Institution (NHRI) we submitted a report, alongside the other UK NHRIs (the Scottish Human Rights Commission and the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission), to the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. We met with the Cabinet Secretary for Culture and Social Justice to discuss embedding the UN recommendations into the Welsh Government’s work on disabled people’s rights.

The report follows a 2016 UN inquiry, which showed that despite some limited progress in certain areas, many disabled people continue to face discrimination. Their living standards have worsened, particularly in light of the cost-of-living crisis.

Key issues highlighted included the lack of social care provision, the disproportionate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the human rights of disabled people and the lack of official data that reflects the experiences of disabled people.

Improvements to women and girls' safety was at the heart of our recommendations in our report to the Council of Europe on the Welsh Government’s implementation of the Istanbul Convention. The convention commits governments to tackle violence against women and girls.

We called on the Welsh Government to:

• support schools to develop human rights education
• require schools to record incidents of prejudiced-based bullying
• collaborate with UK partners to improve data

The Chair of the Equality and Social Justice Committee asked Ministers about progress towards fulfilling the Istanbul Convention obligations in the Senedd.

Advising the government and Senedd

The Welsh Government strengthened its Child Poverty Strategy in line with concerns we raised in a consultation. These were subsequently highlighted by a Senedd Committee. The strategy is more closely framed by the government’s obligations under the UNCRC, reflects the inequalities faced by people who share protected characteristics and the importance of the Socio-economic duty and commits to a framework to monitor and report on progress.  

The Equality and Social Justice Committee’s inquiry report into the implementation of the Anti-racist Wales Action Plan reflected a number of our recommendations. These included providing clarity on future resourcing for the action plan, improving the availability of data to support the plan and publishing monitoring frameworks.

2024 to 2025 will be the final year of our current strategic plan. We have produced a thematic approach to our work to maximise opportunities for collaboration.

We have 15 priority themes in total. They include:

• tackling sexual harassment in the workplace
• supporting change in uniformed services
•  following up work on restraint and other issues for children and young people
• protecting human rights in health and social care environments
• refreshing and developing our guidance and monitoring human rights

Read more information in our business plan for 2024 to 2025.

In 2024–25 we will be consulting on our next three-year strategic plan. We have identified three key areas of emphasis for the consultation, where our unique powers could lead to improvements and long-term change. These are:

• work
• participation and good relations
• and justice and the balance of rights

With powers given to it under the 2006 Equality Act, the Wales Committee is a decision-making body. Among other things, it:

• sets the direction of our work in Wales
• oversees our advice to the Welsh Government and Senedd
• advises on research about equality and human rights in Wales
• undertakes stakeholder engagement in Wales

You can find out more about the Wales Committee’s work by reading the minutes of its meetings.

Wales Committee members 2023-2024

Martyn Jones, Interim Chair from November 2023

Martyn is the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Manager at South Wales Police and has previously been the CEO of the charities Learning Disability Wales and Diverse Cymru. He represented the Wales Committee on the EHRC Disability Advisory Committee.

Bethan Thomas

Beth is the CEO for ELITE Supported Employment Group, leading the charity and social enterprises across South, Mid and West Wales to support hundreds of people every year with vocational opportunities, training and employment.

Previously, Beth worked at the Big Issue as Head of Partnerships and Programme Operations. Heading up the delivery of key strategic programmes, Beth led a UK roll out enabling Big Issue vendors to accept cashless payments, delivering significant impact within financial and digital inclusion.

Beth is also trustee for Street Football Wales, driving social inclusion through football. In 2023, Beth was named as a Future Generations Changemaker 100, by the outgoing Future Generations Commissioner for Wales.

Chris Dunn

Chris is the former Chief Executive of Diverse Cymru, with extensive leadership experience in the Welsh third sector with a particular focus on Equality, inclusion and social care. Chris has dedicated his career to fostering inclusive environments and driving systemic change. His journey is marked by a commitment to innovation, collaboration, and the empowerment of marginalized communities.

Chris is also development coach and mentor, providing support to third-sector leaders, academics, and civil servants, supporting their leadership development.

Helen Mary Jones

Helen Mary has 40 years’ experience of work in public service, including as a member of the Senedd. She was Deputy Director of the Morgan Academy at Swansea University and has been chief executive of a leading national youth work organisation. Helen Mary has held a wide range of roles in the public and third sectors. Currently she is a public affairs consultant, leading campaigns for private and public sector organisations. Helen Mary is a board member of Social Care Wales and a Chair of the Board of Trustees of Children in Wales. She has presented on children’s rights at Harvard, Houston and Austin universities, in the US. In 2017, Helen Mary was awarded an honorary doctorate by Swansea University. This was in recognition of her contribution to public life, particularly the promotion of social justice.

Mary van den Heuvel

Mary is the senior policy officer for the National Education Union Cymru, and leads on policy, press and public affairs for the union in Wales. Mary has worked in various policy and public affairs roles in Wales for more than 15 years, including for Leonard Cheshire Disability, Royal National Institute of Blind People and Royal National Institute for Deaf People.

As a disabled person, Mary is passionate about social justice, representation, equality and equitable access to education.

Committee retirements

During 2023–24 Mark Sykes stepped down from the Wales Committee. We thank him for his contributions.

New Committee members

In July 2024 we welcomed two new members to our Wales Committee, Professor John Williams and Lauren McEvatt.

This publication and related equality and human rights resources are available from our website.

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