Call for evidence on religion and belief issues

The Equality and Human Rights Commission has launched a major call for evidence to collect first hand experiences from individuals and organisations about how their religion or belief, or that of other people, have affected them in the workplace and in using the services and facilities they need in everyday life. The call for evidence covers all faiths, beliefs and experiences in England, Scotland and Wales. 

The Commission’s aim is to gather as much information as possible from individuals, employers, providers of services, legal advisors and religion or belief organisations. They will then use this information to assess how employers and service providers are taking religion or belief into account and what impact this has on individuals.

The Commission is aware that, despite a number of high profile cases involving the manifestation of religion or belief, very little is known about how frequently issues related to religion or belief occur in practice. To address this information gap they want to hear about the issues people face and how they find solutions to them.

In particular they want to hear about both negative and positive experiences which have occurred since 2010, including:

• How religion or belief or the lack of a religion or belief has affected the recent experiences of job applicants, employees or customers;
• Whether people are aware of their legal rights in relation to religion or belief, and if appropriate information and guidance is available to them;
• Views on the effectiveness of current equality and human rights legislation on religion or belief;
• The recent experiences of employers when these issues arise in the workplace; and
• The recent experience of organisations providing services to the public when issues around religion or belief are raised.

To feed into the call for evidence visit www.equalityhumanrights.com/about-us/our-work/key-projects/religion-or-belief-tell-us-about-your-experiences before Tuesday 14 October.

The research is part of a three-year programme of work to increase understanding of religion or belief in public life, improve knowledge about what happens in practice and ensure that the laws that protect everyone’s right to be treated with fairness, dignity and respect are effective. The commission will also use the evidence as part of their work looking at how effective the current legislation is in practice.

For further information email religionorbelief@equalityhumanrights.com.