The EHRC – A Flawed Idea or Flawed Execution?

NICK JOHNSON
Research Fellow, Smith Institute

In my presentation, I will argue that the Equality and Human Rights Commission has failed significantly to promote both domestic equality and human rights. I will look at how it might have done this through the prism of both public opinion and political influence and the tools which it may have used – including its regulatory, communications and research capacity.

I will argue that the Commission has failed to both develop and articulate a strategic vision of what a more equal society looks like. In this respect, it has also failed to build upon the work undertaken by its predecessor bodies. Hamstrung by internal divisions and poorly handled merger machinery, the Commission took too long to face outward and once it has done so, has suffered from greatly reduced credibility in the field. I will also address the ‘forgotten mandate’ of good relations in a climate of rising popular extremism and community fracture and offer ideas as to why the Commission has failed to develop an agenda in this area.

In looking at what I will argue are the failings of the Commission, I will attempt to see how many of these are the products of the way in which the Commission was created and has operated or how many might be a systemic flaw of the idea of a single unified commission having to look at equality, human rights and good relations.