Making sure your school meets the Public Sector Equality Duty

This page contains advice on how to make sure your school meets its duties under the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED).

Below you will find a summary of a school’s responsibilities in relation to the PSED. 

Planning, implementing and reviewing decisions, actions and policies

Before and while making a decision, taking an action or planning a policy, assess the implications for pupils with protected characteristics. A school must:

• assess whether there may be any resulting risks to, or adverse effects for, pupils with protected characteristics
• consider how such risks or effects may be eliminated.

For more information, read eliminating discrimination, harassment and victimisation.

Keep these considerations under review after you have made the decision, taken the action or implemented the policy.

You should eliminate potential discrimination in the day-to-day running of your school. Take steps to remove or minimise any disadvantages experienced by pupils because of their protected characteristic. Providing training for school staff on how to comply with the PSED can help you do this.

Schools must comply with the PSED to make sure no one is disadvantaged by their policies or decisions. This legal obligation belongs to the school and cannot be delegated to others.

The interests of all pupils need to be balanced when meeting the different needs of pupils who share a protected characteristic.

You should ensure the needs of potential applicants to your school are considered as well as current pupils.

Improving participation

Identify areas of school life where you can improve participation from pupils who share a protected characteristic when participation is disproportionally low.

Engage in effective partnerships with local authorities, schools, parents, guardians, carers and members of local communities. Encouraging initiatives through these partnerships can help to foster good relations between different groups of pupils across all protected characteristics.

We have explained this further under eliminating discrimination, harassment and victimisation.

Recording, monitoring and publishing

You should record all the steps you take to meet the PSED and monitor the success of any equality-related initiative you implement.

Publish information annually to demonstrate how your school is complying with the PSED. This needs to be done by 30 March each year. Schools with fewer than 150 employees are exempt from the requirement to publish information on their employees, but may wish to do so anyway to improve their equality information.

Prepare and publish one or more specific and measurable equality objective. This came into effect on 30 March 2018 and needs to be completed at least once every four years.

1. Does the general equality duty apply to your school? Independent fee-paying schools are not covered by the PSED. However, they are subject to the Equality Act 2010. It is therefore a requirement for independent fee-paying schools to comply with the parts of the Act covering prohibited conduct.
2. Are you aware of the deadline dates for the specific duties?
3. Do decision-makers and others have clear guidance about how to publish equality information? It is essential that they understand their role and the importance of keeping clear records when they are making decisions.
4. Are all decision-makers in your organisation fully aware of their obligations?
5. What information do you have about pupils, parents, guardians with particular protected characteristics (including data collected from any engagement)?
6. Is your equality information available in a clear and appropriate format so it can be used to influence policy development effectively?
7. Do you have a process for getting your equality evidence to decision-makers in your organisation at the right times?
8. Do you have systems for using the general duty when you are reviewing or changing your policies if circumstances change at your school?