A new independent body responsible for challenging social injustices and creating a fairer country has been announced today by Prime Minister Theresa May.
The Office for Tackling Injustices (OfTI) will present future Governments with more effective, data-driven, evidence-based challenge to help drive forward reforms to tackle wide-ranging disparities in society.
Following the approach taken by the Race Disparity Audit which uses data to analyse how a person’s ethnicity affects their experiences of public services, the new body will use data and analysis to find out what the key barriers are for specific groups and gather data that is currently unreliable or simply not available.
The OfTI will look at disparities in areas including socio-economic background, ethnicity, gender, disability and sexual orientation and explore if specific groups of people are unfairly discriminated against or held back from getting on in life.
For example, the body will use data to drive Government to look at gender and disability inequalities in the workplace and in housing. Women, who generally enter the workplace with higher qualifications than men, are paid less at entry level and only 32% of disabled private renters said their accommodation was suitable.
Claire Ainsley, Executive Director of the independent Joseph Rowntree Foundation said:
“Theresa May was right to condemn the ‘burning injustices’ blighting Britain when she took to the steps of Downing Street in 2016, but it is action that counts. Our analysis shows no improvement in the injustices she identified during her tenure. More people are being caught by the rising tide of poverty, which disproportionately affects women, black, Asian and ethnic minority people, and people with disabilities.
“Our new Prime Minister can and must put things right for families locked in poverty and bring the country back together. They should commit to giving this new body the status it needs but most importantly, commit to tackling the social injustices which still burn today.”
