Surely Mridul Wadhwa has to go now? Report into ERCC out.

Everyone knows, surely, that a "woman" is a person of either sex - differentiated from a "man" (who is also a person of either sex) by

The PHW (and all the committees) were in existence prior to the current Trustee
Board. It was suspended in March 2024 as there were too few trustees to operate sub-committees effectively so all business was dealt with by the main Board.

Basic governance procedures were poor. Trustees had concerns about the quality of
trustee board papers and tried to support and direct improvements. However, theCEO did not implement the Trustees’ requests.

There was no annual/impact report available to external stakeholders beyond the
annual report and accounts.

The reviewer was surprised to note that a ‘Whole Service Day’ event had been
scheduled for 08.05.24 from 9.00 - 4.30 and a Trustee Board meeting scheduled for the same day. It seemed likely that people involved in the former would be tired and not at their best by the time of the Trustee Board meeting and it would have been better not to schedule two such important events for the same day.

There were no training plans or overall training plan for trustees. Records were
provided for two Trustees. The type and amount of training was very different for the two individuals. The Trustees had identified this as an area of concern which they wished to address (see evidence provided by the Convener/Chair of the Trustee Board for more information). The board have sourced support through Inspiring Scotland's Specialist Volunteer Network to help them to conduct a new skills audit and create a training and development plan for the Trustees. They will also assist the board to source Safeguarding, Sexual Violence and Feminist Governance training.

See evidence provided by the Trustee Board 07.08.24.

Is this them throwing Wadhwa under the bus instead of addressing their own failings?

Exactly my thought. They were well aware of it.

Unforgiveable.

Does ERCC help the FWS supreme court case? It’s a compelling real world example of why fuzzy boundaries and definitions are a problem.

1 – Strong leadership
1.1 Strategic plan, values and professional frameworks

The ERCC Strategy 2023-28 is a high level document which does not give survivors
first priority. The first priority mentioned is to ‘Invest in our people, culture and systems’. It mentions women once in the context of the SIA project (p.4).

This is surprising given the memorandum and articles of the organisation and the data on rape and sexual assault in Scotland. Police Scotland recorded 14,602 incidents of sexual crime in 2022-23. 2,529 of these concerned rape or attempted rape and 5,282 were sexual assault. 94% of rape or attempted rape victims were female and 86% of sexual assault victims were female.

ERCC’s values as stated in its strategy are: loving, empowering, inclusive,
accountable, brave are not fully consistent with NSS’ values: survivor-centred,

trauma-informed, gender-informed, empowerment-orientated, embodying a culture of
belief, actively anti-racist, and employing an intersectional feminist approach.

‘Loving’ and ‘brave’ are not listed in RCS Best Practice Model 2021. These appear
both inappropriate and to raise boundary issues when used in the context of survivors of gender-based violence. The reviewer was informed that these values had been developed through work with survivors. However, the evidence provided did not entirely support this.

The Tribunal judgment demonstrates that the CEO did not treat the survivor, whose
email correspondence was quoted in the judgment, according to the ERCC’s values.

The judgment also found that the management investigation in respect of RA had the
effect of creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating and offensive environment for her and she was discriminated against because of her gender critical beliefs.

The response states that there was very little demand for the women only times. This
^could have been for a range of factors which do not seem to have been explored before such an important decision was taken. The email correspondence shows that from 01 October 2022 until at least February 2024, there were no protected women only spaces available through ERCC unless they were specifically requested.

^
Putting women in the position of having to discuss whether the service they receive
^will be provided by someone who was born and continues to identify as female has caused damage and does not amount to the provision of protected ‘women only’
spaces. Therefore, requiring women to specify that they want a service delivered by a biological woman/female amounts to a core failure to deliver services to NSS standards under both the 2019 and 2024 versions.

^
The reviewer asked the Trustees at a meeting on 07.08.24 whether they had been
^asked to approve this policy. The Trustees could not remember being asked to do so. They had checked the meeting minutes and could not find any record of such a
decision. The response from the senior management team (SMT) provided above shows that they were not informed or requested to decide this very important matter.

^
The SMT was aware that issues of sex and gender are strongly contested and that
^decisions made would be likely to have an impact within ERCC and externally.
^

Therefore, a decision to accept self-ID is a matter of policy and not solely an operational decision. In addition, the issues have a direct bearing on whether the
NSS are being met. It should properly have been referred to the Trustee Board.

Failure to refer this important issue to the Trustee Board was a serious failure of
governance by senior management, responsibility for which lies with the CEO.

Fairly unequivocal and unambiguous there.

If anybody has the will, please, PLEASE try and update or suggest there are updates to this page

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mridul_Wadhwa

It is written entirely by gender affirming activists, you would think the sun shone out of his arse the way they talk about him as a victim, as a crusader

Reviewer: What definition of woman/female is used by ERCC?

Answer: ERCC supports survivors of all genders from 12 years of age. We accept
^self id for referrals and if the referral is appropriate for one of our services we offer the initial meeting. During the initial meeting we create a safe environment to explore further information about the survivor to ascertain how best we can support them. The IM [information meeting] form has the questions that are asked.

^
If we cannot support someone perhaps due to age or they are outwith our local
authority area we signpost them.
^
^
Reviewer: Please can I have TB minutes endorsing the policy on not advertising
^women only services and only providing them on request (formulated in an email exchange HOS, COO SSW September 2022 (see video meeting 02 July 2024 and follow up for a summary).

^
Answer: This was not a policy change only a change in operational practice. To
clarify. ERCC didn’t stop offering women only times. In review there was feedback that there was very little demand of the women only times. The change in operational practice was aimed to ensure that we can offer person centered and individualised spaces for any survivor who requested women only times so they were not adversely impacted by fixed times that would not be suitable for them.

This was to offer flexibility around the need of the survivors. The worker doing the
IM [information meeting] would have explored with service user about preference for women only time and their availability.

From the report:

Putting women in the position of having to discuss whether the service they receive will be provided by someone who was born and continues to identify as female has caused damage and does not amount to the provision of protected ‘women only’ spaces. Therefore, requiring women to specify that they want a service delivered by a biological woman/female amounts to a core failure to deliver services to NSS standards under both the 2019 and 2024 versions.

While welcome, some of the criticisms are spectacularly hypocritical of RCS.
I don't believe they didn't know what the "women-only" group policy was at ERCC at the time.

Indeed it goes further:

0 – Core standard
The core standard requires that the organisation’s primary or major purpose is to
^deliver services to women and girls who has experienced any form of sexual violence at any time in their lives. It also requires organisations to provide and protect women only spaces.

^
There is no mention of dedicated spaces/times for women and girls in the ERCC
Strategy 2023-28 nor in ‘who we support and our services’ on the website. The website at the date of the review gave information on women only times in FAQs which were added to the website after the Tribunal case.

^This contrasts with much clearer information about ERCC’s other services.

^
The reviewer asked for clarification of what ‘women only’ services are available from
ERCC (see in-person meetings at ERCC’s premises and video meeting 02 July 2024 for more information). A document was provided which set out the iterations of ERCC’s women only services (see video meeting 02 July 2024 and follow up for a summary). However, this still did not set out the definition of woman/female being used by ERCC. The reviewer asked for the centre’s working definition (see questions for the COO 02.08.24).

'The needs of survivors should be listened to and respected when they come to any Rape Crisis Centre. It is important that survivors can make informed choices about the services they access at Rape Crisis Centres, and we recognise that for some survivors this includes the choice of a single sex service. We are working with our member Rape Crisis Centres across Scotland to consider what more we need to do to ensure survivors can make informed choices about the support they receive from Rape Crisis Centres, to ensure they are able to access the services they need.'

I coudl fucking weep.

The article clearly states that MW is a male, self IDs himself as a woman and does NOT have the magical piece of paper that changes his legal status.

So why the fuck are they using "she" for a "he"?

I'm sick of this crap.

'We are extremely concerned that for around 16 months ERCC did not provide dedicated women only spaces, as required by the National Service Standards, while declaring to RCS that they were adhering to the standards. This is a significant breach.'

From RCS statement

https://www.rapecrisisscotland.org.uk/news/news/our-statement-on-the-edinburgh-rape-crisis-national-service-standards-report/

Core standards as detailed in the report

The 2024 version of the NSS has five quality standards:

Standard 0: Specialist Service Provision
Rape Crisis specialist services are independent, community-based services, which
work from a trauma-informed, gendered analysis and empowerment perspective to provide confidential specialist services to survivors of sexual violence.

Standard 1: Strong Leadership
Rape Crisis specialist services have strong leadership and governance that ensures
^services are survivor-centred and delivered to the highest quality. There are robust strategic plans and frameworks in place to ensure that organisations are safe, sustainable and values driven. Strong leadership should also be evident in the way
that intersectional feminist values operate in centres, driving anti-oppressive practices, to the benefit of survivors, staff and volunteers.^

Standard 2: Responsive to Survivors
Rape Crisis specialist services are responsive to the diverse needs of survivors and
actively working towards ensuring that services are relevant, accessible and survivor led.

Standard 3: Safe Practice
Rape Crisis specialist services seek to expand the safety and wellbeing of all
survivors (as well as staff and volunteers) and work within safe, trauma-informed models of practice that facilitate this.

Standard 4: Lasting Impact
Rape Crisis specialist services are dedicated to ending sexual violence and abuse,
driving the impact and effectiveness of services, and fostering lasting change.

Someone asked upthread about these standards in relation to pending legal cases. The repetition of 'survivor-led' together with comments about accessable and catering for diverse needs is probably highly relevant here. You can't just turn around and apply TWAW as an idea in that. It's inappropriate and isn't survivor led.

It makes me weep that this is where we are, in 2024.

Crumbs that’s surprisingly damning. Other rape crisis centres in Scotland should take note. I’m certain ERCC won’t be the only one.

Beside the point I know but there are so many typos in that article. You’d think the Daily Mail would have proof-readers to skim articles before publication.

That's my point.

Placed on leave. Not sacked cos they didn't want to risk a legal case. Now this.

It closes pretty much any legal recourse that might otherwise have been open.

From the report:

There was evidence that the actions of some ERCC staff had caused damage to some survivors.The survivor whose email appeared in the tribunal judgment had been traumatised by the CEO’s interview on the Guilty Feminist podcast.

In July 2024, another woman contacted the reviewer and asked to speak about her experience. She had been in contact with ERCC and wanted to be clear that support would be provided by someone who was biologically female. The gender identity/gender affirmative approach she felt was adopted by Rape Crisis Scotland and ERCC did not provide such assurance. She said she was aware that women were excluding themselves from approaching Rape Crisis Centres including ERCC because of this.

The reviewer was also made aware in confidence that some professionals had heard through their professional networks that some survivors did not feel safe using the centre.

Neither of the women who spoke to the reviewer had used ERCC’s services personally but they had come into contact with ERCC staff online or at a meeting.

Pretty damning. I'd hope they would terminate MWs employment but we will see.

Its beggars belief that some people really can't see why rape victims need a place that doesn't have a penis in the vicinity, even if it's dressed up as a woman 😡

Their clients can be as young as 12 years old, and were forced to ask for same sex care.

The review was heavily critical of Wadhwa, who self identifies as a woman but does not have a gender recognition certificate and is legally a man.

It found her be a domineering as chief executive who “who did not understand the limits on her role’s authority” and it said Wadhwa “failed to set professional standards of behaviour” within the organisation.

She was portrayed as incompetent, overseeing an organisation with systemic failures and a chaotic approach in key areas such as financial transparency, training and safeguarding for staff and clients.

Wadhwa was placed on leave from June this year, a month after she was blamed by the employment tribunal for being the “invisible hand” in the victimisation of Ms Adams for her gender critical views.

Placed on leave. I assume pending this reports publication.

I wonder where that leaves any claims for unfair dismissal though.... Apart from in the bin.