Equality Duty
Ark Housing is designated as a public authority for the purposes of Equality, in accordance with Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 which became effective on 8th October 2004.
The Association continues to embrace its statutory duty as core to the business and is committed to fulfilling its responsibilities under Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998.
Section 75 requires us, in carrying out our functions, powers and duties, to have due regard to the need to promote equality of opportunity:
- between persons of different religious belief, political opinion, racial group, age, marital status or sexual orientation
- between men and women generally
- between persons with a disability and persons without
- between persons with dependants and persons without
In addition, without prejudice to its obligations above, the Act requires that we have regard to the desirability of promoting good relations between persons of different religious belief, political opinion or racial group.
The main aim of Section 75 is to make sure that equality is at the core of everything we do. The Ark Housing Equality Scheme sets out how the Association proposes to fulfil the Section 75 statutory duties across all the functions including service provision, employment and procurement through the effective implementation of our equality action plan.
The Scheme impacts on each employee, including how we do our jobs and how we conduct ourselves in our daily business; it affects how we relate to customers and to our colleagues.