Update to Equalities Guidance and FAQs now available

A minor update to National Guidance on Collecting Equality Data and FAQs is now available, reflecting further discussions between SHR and EHRC. It also reflects some points raised at the recent Q&A webinar SFHA held in conjunction with SHR and GWSF.

EHRC has confirmed to the SHR that marriage and civil partnership is only a protected characteristic in terms of employment.  This means there is more flexibility for landlords as to whether they choose to collect data on this characteristic for tenants and applicants than with other protected characteristics. This is reflected in the revised guidance along with some minor updates to the FAQs.

The revised guidance is available in the downloads section to the right of this article.

The guidance and FAQs were last updated in April 2022 when the following key changes were made:

• The document now reflects throughout that that equalities data could be collected on a completely anonymised basis – i.e., not linked to the individual in any way.  
• Two alternative model questionnaires are included as appendices – one for anonymised collection and one for those who still wish to link data collected to the individual.
• The document provides some further clarity around the use of census data 
• The FAQs raised by RSLs are now included within the appendices so that all guidance can be found in one place
• Further questions were added to the FAQs.