FPFW: ONS concede defeat!

The judgement today gave me the courage to challenge a document at work where sexuality had been used rather than sex as a protected characteristic. I referred to the ONS decision today and management agreed to change the wording.

Stonewall are a charity and not a Public Body and not coveted by FOI

I think charities receiving significant government funding should have to comply with FOI for the portion of their activities funded by that money

Just so pleased we have women like Dr Nic Williams and the team at FPFW

Absolutely - British Feminists are absolutely doing themselves proud!

Has anyone asked stonewall in a foi what the submission says?

Do Stonewall have to respond to FOI requests? That would be very interesting if so. Mermaids, too.

Individuals must answer to the best of their knowledge and belief.

Belief is relevant to the gender and religion questions. Anyone sufficiently compos mentis to be filling in the census surely knows what sex they are, even if they wish it was otherwise.

Clymene
Exactly, a report or document of any size will need sign off at various levels before it can be published. I think there is a lot more to come out yet.
Just so pleased we have women like Dr Nic Williams and the team at FPFW.

You should not feel pressured to give an answer that you know to be false.

mermaidsuk.org.uk/news/clarifying-census-2021-guidance/

Oh my God, I agree with Mermaids.

Except I don't think they are saying what they think they are.

B) The ONS last made a submission to the Stonewall Workplace Equality Index during 2018. We do not hold a record of the submission due to staff changes since then

Has anyone asked stonewall in a foi what the submission says?

But at a roundtable meeting of stakeholders on 24th June attended by Fair Play For Women the Head of Research at EHRC said that “the guidance accompanying the sex question should allow people to self-identify their gender and should not be based on someone’s legal sex status”.

I will never stop seeing this as lunacy.

Can I understand someone really wanting to be the opposite sex? Yes.

Can I understand anyone saying it's actually true?

God no. It's barking.

www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/674096/response/1667284/attach/3/ReviewResponseAndEnclosure20201030.pdf

It seems vanishingly unlikely that a) a single member of staff was involved in compiling the data or b) that a single member of staff held the only copy of the submission

Brilliant news! Thank you Doctor Nic and FPFW.

Fabulous news 🎊🎉🎈

Regarding the FOI reply
B) The ONS last made a submission to the Stonewall Workplace Equality Index during 2018. We do not hold a record of the submission due to staff changes since then.

I cannot believe that of a public body. All public bodies will have team folders to save data to which are backed up every night. Noone is encouraged to save to their personal drive or the computer drive. Emails will have to be saved in a system like ERMS? to ensure they are held securely for auditing and FOIs. So the nation's data collector does not know how to store data?

DoctorW -

Thank you!

So... now that it's been established that sex means sex (or GRC) for statistical purposes - when will the police start recording crimes correctly? Who else has been erroneously collecting incorrect data?

Or am I getting a bit too eager?

[quote DoctorW]Hi everyone - Nicola Williams from Fair Play For Women here. Thank you for all your lovely comments and your support. I know many of you here will have donated to our legal crowdfunder. So thank you!

Here's a peek behind the scenes at ONS showing how Stonewall squashed stakeholder debate and who supported them.

fairplayforwomen.com/whos-behind-the-government-losing-sight-of-reality/[/quote]
Jesus Mary and Joseph - the census win was important, but for many people it is too much of a nuanced argument to really understand what is at stake.
But, this detailed blow by blow account of how Stonewall inveigeled themselves across government institutions and created an environment that systematically wiped out any opportunity for dissent.
I have been really struggling with my growing understanding that this is all part of a highly orchestrated conspiracy - because it makes me sound like a crazy woman - but there it is laid out in black and white - how to capture a government.

Thank fuck for FoI - they will be coming for that next I bet.

The reply to the FOI is interesting (linked to in the FPFW article):

www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/freedomofinformationfoi/onspaymentstoandcorrespondencewithstonewall

as is the link to the Legal Feminist article about Stonewall Champions:
legalfeminist.org.uk/2021/02/01/submission-and-compliance/

If you haven't read them already, I would urge you to peruse them both - they make very interesting reading.

ONS, the public body we trust with data, has, it says, lost all correspondence due to “staff changes”.

I don't buy that for a second. This data or information wouldn't have been held by just one person in a personal folder or drive

@DoctorW
You are amazing. I've been sharing this with all the fab women in my office today!

That really is a shocking read @DoctorW. All these public bodies, paid for by tax payers, changing guidance and policies so that they no longer comply with the law

Excellent news!!!! I hope other institutions start to apply the same rules such as the police in recording crimes, regarding the legal sex of both victim and perpetrator, and asking a separate question about gender identity.

[quote DoctorW]Hi everyone - Nicola Williams from Fair Play For Women here. Thank you for all your lovely comments and your support. I know many of you here will have donated to our legal crowdfunder. So thank you!

Here's a peek behind the scenes at ONS showing how Stonewall squashed stakeholder debate and who supported them.

fairplayforwomen.com/whos-behind-the-government-losing-sight-of-reality/[/quote]
That is quite shocking to read.
Thank you for what you have done for women and girls.

TartrazineCustard

I don't think there's any reason to assume that reading. FPFW and other groups had been engaging ONS on this for a couple of years. The census team would have known this was a contentious interpretation of the question, particularly in the context of public debate on sex and gender. I would have expected them to ask for legal advice from their in-house team or from Government Legal. Departments do this all the time.

Guidance like this doesn't get finalised by a random team working in a silo. The final version, given the profile of the census, would have been signed off at high level, accompanied by a submission with advice detailing any potential legal or other issues/risks. That is just routine for advice in govt departments.

Heard it on the news about an hour ago, saying Sex should be answered based on birth certificate.

Huge thanks to FPFW for taking this legal action.

Not just a victory in itself but sends a strong message.

Apparently, 60% of companies who suffer data loss, close down within 6 months of the disaster and 72% who suffer extreme data loss, disappear within 24 months.
Anyone who is worked in finance or legal, will know that as well as digital backups, paper trails are also kept for auditing purposes.

www.workspace.co.uk/content-hub/technology/opinion-what-is-the-true-cost-of-lost-data-to-bus