MHF backs call for better funding of EOC

The Forum have joined with the Fawcett Society and a dozen or so other organisations to call on the government to ensure that the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) has sufficient funding for the remaining 18 months of its life.

The EOC is to be abolished in 2007 and its functions merged into a new Commission on Equality and Human Rights (CEHR). In the meantime, the MHF and the other signatories to a letter to both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown are concerned that as a result of the Department of Trade and Industry's latest funding settlement, the EOC appears to have insufficient resources to discharge its statutory functions and to complete its important work. 

Peter said: 'The EOC may not have sufficient funds to implement the public sector gender duty which the government has just introduced in the Equality Bill, nor to follow up the Women and Work Commission, enabling it to close the pay/ productivity gap.

'We also believe it is necessary to establish a strong gender legacy to be picked up by the CEHR, including ground-breaking work on the undervaluing of women's work and support for the modern family. All of these are issues of great importance to gender stakeholders.

'Without appropriate funding the EOC will be unable to play a critical role in helping to modernise public services, helping it to best meet the needs of owmen and men and of modern families,' Peter concluded.

The signatories to the letter include the Fawcett Society, Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, Child Poverty Action Group, YWCA , QED-UK, One Parent Families, Fathers Direct, Age Concern, Men's Health Forum, Daycare Trust, National Family and Parenting Institute, Women's Resource Centre, Working Families, Contact a Family, Mother @ work, Counsel and Care, 1990 Trust, Barbara Switzer (President of the National Assembly of Women) and Carers UK.