The Equality Act (2010) states that a public authority must make decisions and consider the impact on people with protected characteristics. This is implemented by the Public Sector Equality Duty as: 

• Eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation  
• Advance equality of opportunity 
• Foster good relations  

The protected characteristics covered by the Act are: 

• age
• disability
• gender reassignment
• pregnancy and maternity
• race
• religion or belief
• sex 
• sexual orientation

The Fairer Scotland Duty came into force in Scotland from 1 April 2018. It places a legal responsibility on public bodies in Scotland to actively consider ('pay due regard' to) how they can reduce inequalities of outcome caused by socio-economic disadvantage, when making strategic decisions.

Socio-economic disadvantage can be described as:

• Low/no wealth
• Low income
• Area deprivation
• Socio-economic background
• Material deprivation

The inequalities of outcome that people can face because of socio-economic disadvantage include:

• Poorer skills and attainment
• Lower healthy life expectancy
• Lower quality, less secure and lower paid work
• Greater chance of being a victim of crime
• Less chance of being treated with dignity and respect

In June 2023, the Falkirk Council Executive passed a motion to add ‘Care Experienced’ to the statutory list of protected characteristics. This means that ‘Care Experienced’ will be considered in all Impact Assessments from the date of Council agreeing this motion.

The following definition was agreed on 4th April 2024:

The term care-experienced in Falkirk refers to anyone who has been or is currently in care or from a looked-after background at any stage in their life, including adopted children who were previously looked-after. This care may have been provided in one of many different settings such as in residential care, foster care, kinship care, or through being looked-after at home with social work support.