Background
487.The public sector equality duties in previous legislation specified which bodies were subject to the duties in different ways. The Race Relations Act 1976 used a list, while the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 applied the disability equality duty and the gender equality duty to those who have “functions of a public nature”. The Act combines the two approaches by including a list of public bodies subject to the duty, to provide legal certainty, and in addition applying the duty to anyone else who is exercising public functions, in respect of those functions (see subsection (2) of section 149).