From 1 October 2007, the Equality and Human Rights Commission took over the role and functions of the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE), the Disability Rights Commission (DRC) and the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC), with new responsibilities for sexual orientation, age, religion and belief, and human rights.
Many of those who worked in the previous equalities commissions joined the new Commission, creating a body with an enormous wealth of experience and knowledge about race, sex and disability equality and discrimination.
We’ve also brought in experts in sexual orientation, age, religion and belief and human rights in order to cover all the aspects of our spectrum of responsibilities.
The team
The chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission is Trevor Phillips; Dr Nicola Brewer is the chief executive. They are backed by a senior management team who are all major players in the equalities and human rights field. They are supported by statutory committees for disability, Scotland and Wales.
For a full list of our commissioners, with photos and biographies, see our commissioners page.
Previous commissions
Before the Equality and Human Rights Commission, there were three equality commissions: the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE), the Disability Rights Commission (DRC) and the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC).
To find out more about the history of these organisations, and to get access to archived versions of legacy commission sites, see Our history.