More than half (57 per cent) of senior HR professionals at Yorkshire and Humber based organisations that were surveyed by the law firm conducted last month for its 'Equality Bill: Justice for All?' report admitted concerns that that women and minorities are under-represented in their organisation.

The Equality Bill is widely expected to attempt to address this problem by allowing organisations that are recruiting staff to favour equally-qualified candidates from an under-represented group. But Alan Chalmers, employment partner at DLA Piper Sheffield, believes that this form of positive discrimination is likely to be controversial and employers in the region may be discouraged from taking the risk of using it.

Click on the green play button to hear the intervie with Chalmers

"The chances that managers could misapply positive discrimination could lead to disgruntled candidates suing and this may strongly discourage many organisations from applying it," said Chalmers.

"On top of this, there are risks that colleagues may think someone got their job due to their race, sex or disability which could cause significant friction at work and employers will need to work hard to ensure their employees fully understand the process of positive discrimination. We expect this move alone to be ineffective at addressing the under-representation of women and minorities," he continued.

Some media reports have suggested that mandatory equality auditing may be implemented to address the issue.

Alan said: "Equality auditing may require large organisations to disclose gender and minority group representation in the workplace and, although it may yield long-term benefits, it would come as a costly and unwelcome surprise to many businesses in Yorkshire and Humber during the recession."

The 'Equality Bill: Justice for All?' report also reveals only a third of companies reports on gender pay and 63 per cent Yorkshire and Humber-based companies have not audited gender pay differences.

The full-time national gender pay gap has increased to 17.1 percent according to the Office of National Statistics and in certain sectors the disparity is even greater.

Recently published statistics show that the gender pay gap in the financial services sector is up to 60%. However, DLA Piper's report reveals that 70 per cent of private sector senior HR professionals at Yorkshire and Humber companies do not think there is a pay bias towards men in their organisations.

To tackle the gender pay gap, the Equality Bill is widely expected to ban pay secrecy clauses that prevent employees from revealing their remuneration to colleagues.

The government claims that these are used in a quarter of workplaces and that banning them will help expose gender pay gaps and encourage action to address these disparities. However, DLA Piper's research, conducted last month, reveals that only four per cent of Yorkshire and Humber based organisations currently operate pay secrecy clauses and that banning the clauses would only encourage 20 per cent of organisations to review gender pay differences within a year.

Alan Chalmers said: "Our report shows that banning pay secrecy clauses is unlikely to address the gender pay gap on its own. With many organisations in the region unaware of the problem and others reluctant to take action, it is clear that further steps need to be taken to move towards more equal pay between men and women."

The Equality Bill will also legislate against discrimination by association so that individuals caring for disabled or elderly people can not be discriminated against.

This development, along with recently enhanced rights to flexible working, is a source of concern for HR professionals at Yorkshire and Humber based companies. Nearly a third have had to balance competing requests from, for example, a parent of a young child and a request from a carer of a disabled relative and very few of these HR professionals have been unable to accommodate all requests. Three quarters think that balancing these requests is likely to become an increasing issue in their workplace.

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