Welsh Assembly and the lost equality impact assessment

The Welsh Government have told me that they are not responsible for the transgender policies that they funded other organisations to produce.
We have no authority for documents held on the websites of third parties, such as Youth Cymru or Welsh Women’s Aid these are a matter for those organisations.

According to the EHRC:
"A public authority must take responsibility for complying with the general equality duty in relation to all functions to which the general equality duty applies. Responsibility for the general equality duty cannot be delegated to external organisations that are carrying out functions on its behalf."
www.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/essential_guide_to_the_public_sector_equality_duty_wales.pdf

The Welsh Government funded both Youth Cymru and Welsh Women's Aid to produce their transgender policies. If that means they could be considered to be 'carrying out functions on its behalf' then the Welsh Government is responsible for compliance with the PSED and for the content of the policies.

I'm going to have to write to Jane Hutt again about this statement:
We note your views in relation to the loss of the Equality Impact Assessment; however, we do not consider that its loss represents a breach of the Public Sector Equality Duty.

The EHRC say that impact must be monitored.
www.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/assessing_impact_and_the_equality_duty_wales_0.pdf

"Assessing for impact on an authority’s ability to comply with the general equality duty does not end with the introduction of the new or revised policy."

"It is necessary to use monitoring, evaluation and review processes to ensure that the actual impact matches with the impact which was anticipated, and that relevant actions have been implemented."

"The specific duties in Wales include a requirement to monitor impact"

And Welsh Government have said the same in one of their own documents.
www.assembly.wales/laid%20documents/gen-ld10885/gen-ld10885-e.pdf

"Equality Impact Assessments are live and continuous assessments which last the lifecycle of the decision or policy and, in some cases beyond."

How can they monitor impact if they have lost the Equality Impact Assessment and they don't intend to replace it?

My gast is well and truly flabbered by this Before I became aware of this issue (thanks FWR), I thought our democracy and the way our country was run was pretty damn good. I thought our councils and governments probably had a lot of loud people who were full of hot air, but I was equally confident there were enough civic-minded people quietly getting on with their jobs. I’m still a bit shocked that this was apparently a complete fairytale mindset.

Anyway. This shower of shite are on my list as well. My best friend will tell you I routinely forget engagements, conversations and sometimes my own address too much wine but I will not forget this. That they don’t even respect women enough to admit they fucked up is very telling. That they’re willing for that fuck up to negatively affect girls in schools takes that up a level to blatant disregard for safeguarding. I will also not forget the despicable behaviour of GIDS.

FOIRequester I think you’re fabulous. Thank you so much for persevering with this

"I asked for the names of all organisations which were consulted or otherwise involved in the production of the Equality Impact Assessment. In reply they have sent me a link to the consultation responses for the Transgender Action Plan. This is the link:
gendergp.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Welsh-Government-Action-Plan-2015-.pdf

They had already sent this document as an attachment to my previous request, and it is also available in their own archive, but they have now chosen to send me a link to it on Helen Webberley's website."

Staggering!!! The Welsh Government is so out of touch with this whole issue that it has directed you FOIrequester to the website of a GP not only suspended by the GMC but specifically prohibited under Welsh medical regulations from operating in Wales.

If I have understood this correctly, are we even sure yet that anyone in the Welsh Government actually had a hand in producing the Transgender Plan? ie. that this could be another case like that of the National Police Chiefs Council commissioning Stonewall to produce a "National Trans Toolkit" for all Police Forces, rubber-stamping it without reading it and not realising that it had issued guidance that misrepresented the law?

archive.fo/I6DZf

Shocking that trans advocacy groups in Wales did not notice the lack of an EIA and have not been kicking up a stink about this!

What you are doing is absolutely amazing. We have to find a way to make all of these people accountable.

"We note your views in relation to the loss of the Equality Impact Assessment; however, we do not consider that its loss represents a breach of the Public Sector Equality Duty.

Say what now??

Thank you for being so tenacious.

Searchlights are on their way. This is just one example of institutional capture, public-sector internal laziness (cut-and-paste mentality), manipulation by the trans lobby groups (e.g. Stonewall), and machiavellian disregard for procedure, the law, and steam-rollering women's rights.

Anyone who has been complicit in this will be held to account. Yes, in the meantime we will all have to pick the kids up from school, make tea and check an old granny-person isn't dead, but remember this... we will be coming for you.

I've also had a reply to my latest letter to Jane Hutt. This is what she (or rather, the civil servant writing on her behalf) said:

"We note your views in relation to the loss of the Equality Impact Assessment; however, we do not consider that its loss represents a breach of the Public Sector Equality Duty. Therefore, we do not plan to withdraw the Transgender Plan. We have no authority for documents held on the websites of third parties, such as Youth Cymru or Welsh Women’s Aid these are a matter for those organisations."

Youth Cymru and Welsh Women's Aid are not public sector organisations, so have no obligations under the PSED. There is obviously something wrong with the way the PSED works if the public sector can circumvent it by passing the writing of policy to voluntary and private organisations, then saying "nothing to do with me". Welsh Government funded the writing of these policies, yet they are claiming they have no responsibility for their contents.

Wouldn’t it be simpler at this point for them to just admit how badly they fucked up?

I mean they’re going to have to admit it at some point and the longer it goes on, the more extravagantly stupid they’re going to look

Why not just get it over with?

Thank you for doing this.

New response today to my latest request to Welsh Government.
www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/information_about_the_equality_i#incoming-1455724

I asked for the names of all organisations which were consulted or otherwise involved in the production of the Equality Impact Assessment. In reply they have sent me a link to the consultation responses for the Transgender Action Plan. This is the link:
gendergp.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Welsh-Government-Action-Plan-2015-.pdf

They had already sent this document as an attachment to my previous request, and it is also available in their own archive, but they have now chosen to send me a link to it on Helen Webberley's website.

I also asked for the most recent available draft of the Equality Impact Assessment. They claim this is a repeat of my earlier request for the final document, so they appear to be stating that in addition to the final published document they have lost all earlier drafts. I will be requesting an internal review, and I will ask them to clarify whether this is the case. I view this as a separate request, since I didn't ask for draft documents in my earlier request.

Yup. And what's even better is that nobody will be held to account because it's only women and those bothersome trans people. And everybody knows that women should just shut up and piss off, right?

Now back to that council meeting about what kind of biscuits we should be having in council meetings.

So, let me get this straight. If you don't do an EIA then you can pretend you've lost it and not only are there no consequences for this you also aren't made to do another one? And you can just merrily roll out policy changes on the ground without one.

Why would anyone in any organisation bother doing one in the first place?

Well done FOI you have done sterling work.

EHRC are useless. Not fit for purpose.

"We have considered the issues you raise but we do not agree that the loss of an EIA document is a serious breach of equality duty."

So there you go. Makes you wonder what would be a serious breach. Wrong pronouns I suppose.

I haven’t got any links to hand but the EHRC are fucked and have drunk the kool aid from what I can remember. I seem to think they have issued some deeply suspect schools advice which is utterly dismissive of sex-based rights.

What can be done about this? Who could be regarded as accountable for this?

Perhaps the Equalities and Human Rights Commission?

Is it not this organisation which exists to ensure that the Equality Act 2010 is applied properly in all circumstances?

Thank you @FOIrequester - this is so important.
Solidarity.

I would be deeply unsurprised if most Equality Impact Assessments nationwide have been done on the same principles.

Which would explain a LOT.

What can be done about this? Who could be regarded as accountable for this?

Another update on the Denbighshire schools policy FOI. I've just had a response to the internal review. They have sent the same document again with a bit more detail about what they are doing for trans children, but they have still only considered one of the protected characteristics covered by the Equality Act.

www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/equality_impact_assessment_for_t_4#incoming-1450108

Wellbeing Impact Assessment

I don't think they understand what an Equality Impact Assessment is for. In both versions of their Impact Assessment they have included this paragraph:

"The policy...Will provide information that will allow schools to feel confident that they are complying with the Equality Act 2010 and meeting their Public Sector Equality Duty obligations and the specific requirements of safeguarding legislation."

But their policy doesn't comply with the PSED because they have failed to carry out an Equality Impact Assessment taking into account all the protected characteristics.

Well done, FOI.

Thanks for that link Victoria. I'll have a look at that later.

I'll add their new response to my current complaint with the ICO. They've said I can add any more correspondence I have with Welsh Government while the case is open.

I asked for documents between 19/11/2014 and 14/03/2016, which are the date on which the Transgender Action Plan was first debated in the Assembly and the the date of publication respectively. They are saying that all emails from the start of this period would have been automatically deleted before the publication date.

How can a government formulate policy when they are automatically deleting some of the relevant correspondence before the policy is finalised?

This is the Retention and Disposal Schedule they sent me. gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2019-04/Retention%20%20Disposal%20Schedule.pdf

I can't find anything in there about destroying email correspondence after 1 year - the retention times for various types of correspondence are all longer than that. They also seem to have some sort of archiving system called iShare, which is where these documents should end up, so they should still be able to search through that database and find anything relevant.

Oh dear

Either they’re incompetent or they’re lying

Nice choice

This might be a useful reference document re retention and autodelete of emails.
www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/information-management/guidance-principles-on-the-deletion-of-email.pdf

Essentially saying we autodelete everything after a year is not good enough they need to apply a bit more thought than that

Do you ever wonder if somebody is fibbing?