The low down Any government will focus on its legacy as it heads towards dissolution and the possibility of a lost election. For Gordon Brown’s administration, the Equality Act was part of that legacy – an ambitious 11th-hour addition to the statute book that replaced nine pieces of legislation, including groundbreaking and iconic laws on race and equal pay. The act was preceded by the creation of a new watchdog, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which absorbed the discrete equality remits of its predecessors. But does an ‘umbrella’ approach to equality work? The act is often misunderstood by the public bodies that should enforce and reinforce it. And with poor access to justice, people with the protected characteristics listed in the act find that making their rights justiciable is a struggle.