Article 55 only applies in Northern Ireland, where it's a statutory requirement under the Fair Employment and Treatment (NI) Order 1998 for registered employers in Northern Ireland to periodically review their employment practices and workforce composition to ensure fair participation for both the Protestant and Roman Catholic communities.
Protecting your company from risk and promoting diversity begins with knowing where you are with fair participation and workforce structure. That's where an 'Article 55' review comes in. It's a review of the composition of your workforce and of your employment practices.
Employers with more than 11 employees registered with the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland (ECNI) must carry out an Article 55 review. This includes public bodies, private companies, and charities.
An organisation must carry out the first review no more than 3 years after the date of registration with the Commission and
then at intervals of no more than 3 years. When a review is due, the Commission will send you the review booklet together with guidance on how to complete it. This will also set out the prescribed period for completing the review.
The purpose of an Article 55 Review is to:
- Determine whether members of the Protestant and Roman Catholic communities are enjoying, and are likely to continue to enjoy, fair participation in employment
- Take affirmative action if fair participation is not being secured by members of the Protestant and Catholic communities
- Set goals and timetables as part of affirmative action
- Take account of the guidance in the Fair Employment Code of Practice
It's worth noting that the Commission has the power to direct an employer to carry out more frequent reviews if it deems it necessary to ensure that problems or potential problems are identified and tackled as early as possible.
Completing an Article 55 review is easier if you have the data capture tools in place. HRLocker provides a package with fair employment monitoring. The module allows you to:
- Provide easy-to-access data on your team’s community background and catchment areas so you can easily make the needed comparative evaluations.
- Track elusive information on recruitment, shortlisting, promotions, leavers, transfers and your equality of opportunity.
- Provide support with training requests, training needs and training plans.
