According to the Government’s own Equality Impact Assessment (EIA) into the EMA Replacement Scheme by the Department for Education, the Save EMA campaign has discovered that Michael Gove has u-turned yet again on this policy due to legal action, this time posed by the Equality Act.

One of the main argument made by the Government for replacing EMA is that they are “better targeting” the EMA by making the awarding of discretionary payments locally at the discretion of local schools and colleges. Instead of the current EMA scheme which distributes payments centrally by simple open and transparent means tests. However, the Save EMA campaign discovered while studying the recent EIA report that Michael Gove and the Government could be u-turning again on EMA only over a month after we forced them into a u-turn.

This is because (as Save EMA discovered and covered by the BBC) that according to their own EIA they acknowledge that the replacement of EMA ‘could be discriminatory’ and lead to a possible breach of equality laws.

This is section 51 of the EIA under the heading Local Administration:

It will be at the discretion of colleges to determine the relative merits of applications for financial support. This process is therefore open to unintended discrimination on the basis of disability; gender; ethnicity or other characteristics protected under equality law. We will consider whether there should be some central arbitration of the discretionary administration of funding or at least ensure transparency of administration to evaluate the impact achieved by providers, including value for public money.

To remind you how big a sea change in Government policy this could be, this is what Michael Gove said only on the 28^th March 2011:

“Schools and colleges will have the freedom to decide on the allocation of the bursary,” he added: “They are best placed to know the specific needs of their students, and we will give professionals full flexibility over allocating support.”

For those who don’t know, an Equality Impact Assessment is conducted by a Government Department ahead of the introduction of a certain initiative. It examines the likely or actual effects of policies or services on people in respect of disability, gender and racial equality to identify what effect its implementation may have on different groups in the country. It helps the Government Department make sure the needs of people are taken into account when they make a change to a current policy or service or when they develop and implement a new policy or service like what they are doing with EMA.

This report was done by the Department for Education themselves, which makes it all the more damning as this basically is the Department for Education acknowledging that their own policy will discriminate against the most vulnerable groups, which EMA was intended to help and target to get to remain in education.

Save EMA have been saying since day one that there would be grave equality issues brought up by removing EMA and the Government has finally admitted this by whispering it out in their own Equality Impact Assessment hoping no one would notice.

The proposed plans for the replacement of EMA will place the power of Herod into the hands of local more junior staff at a time when they will already be over worked, forcing them to make vital decisions over the future of some of the most vulnerable teenagers in our country. One just has to look at the views of self described “Tory Teacher” Katherine Birbalsingh to realise that the potential for discrimination through the lack of transparency in locally administered discretionary payments is severe.

It would be comical if this was not such a serious matter. Even this Government’s own figures show that after the national roll out of EMA in 2004 participation of 16-18-year-olds in full-time education rose.

This Government have taken a scheme viewed as successful by the IFS and created something now which ‘could be discriminatory‘.

Last month we successfully forced a u-turn out of the government by threat of legal action, this month it seems the government are forcing u-turns out of themselves by not following the law. As we said, it would be comical if this was not such a serious matter.

Please see below for a copy of the Equality Impact Assessment, with section 51. Local Administration highlighted:
EMA Equality Impact Assessment