Equality Advisory Support Service

Equality Advisory Support Service (EASS) Helpline on Equality and Human Rights

The helpline advises and assists individuals on issues relating to equality and human rights, across England, Scotland and Wales. They can also accept referrals from organisations which, due to capacity or funding issues, are unable to provide ‘in depth help and support’ to local users of their services local users of their services.

Some examples of the types of issues they have advised on:

• A disabled individual who was trying to update banking details through the use of an interpreter at his local high street bank.
• An individual who has been victimised by a pub landlord because he has inferred that a member of his staff was acting unlawfully by racially abusing a fellow customer.
• An individual who was unhappy about the way that the younger clientele at work treated him and spoke to him because he was an older person.
• A Trans individual, who had transitioned from male to female, who worked for a security company and reapplied for a security pass only to discover that the process for renewing her pass had disclosed the fact she had undergone gender reassignment surgery.
• A pregnant woman who was advised by a leading restaurant chain to breast feed her baby in the toilet and not in the restaurant as she was causing offence.

Accessibility:
EASS are an accessible and inclusive service which means they are able to support a wide variety of different languages and are able to provide advice to Deaf members of society through their partnership with the Royal Association for Deaf people.

They recognise that some of their service users will require the support of a lay advocate in order for them to understand the advice they are given. In certain circumstances we can secure a trained lay advocate who will be able to provide one to one support for individuals with a learning difficulty.

Informal Resolution:

EASS are also able to support an individual to resolve their issue using alternative informal dispute resolution, as opposed to issuing a claim in the county court or the employment tribunal, whilst recognising situations where issuing a claim may well be the only option. In some instances EASS may write to a service provider on behalf of a client in order to initiate a resolution.

EASS works with people to help them decide the best course of action to take to resolve their issue and to achieve the best possible outcome.

You can access the EASS helpline by calling:

Freephone Telephone 0808 800 0082
Text phone 0808 800 0084

You can find further information and resources on their website here: http://www.equalityadvisoryservice.com/app/home

You can also access their September 2021 Helpline Newsletter here