To think it's odd that our first 'Period Dignity Officer' is a man?

[Bobby80]

So pretty much what the title says. The first Period Dignity Officer has been appointed and they are male. One one hand I'm thinking 'WTF' and the other I'm thinking this is a very good PR stint/opportunity to actively involve men in the conversation.
male Period Dignity Officer

Ah ok, I see what you mean then.

It is a horrible decision all round. I do hope that something shifts but I don't get the sense that Jason gives a shit about the sensitivity of the issue otherwise he would never have applied.

I think the title only demonstrates how little thought went into this.

To be clear, it's the period dignity partnership. So there's probably a period dignity marketing executive, period dignity data scientist etc etc

They just should've not been ridiculous and denoted them as things like:
lead officer of the period dignity partnernship
marketing executive of the period dignity partnership

That title makes it sound like he's going to be running round thrusting tampons at girls and shouting about how normal cramps and PMS are.

Oh it is and he shouldn't have applied, but ultimately the decision to hire him was made by them. They should have had the sense to say no. But apparently snp think a man can tell us about our bodies better than a woman. 😂

Unutterably depressing

I find it depressing that he doesn't even bother to dress up for the photograph that represents him for the job as if he takes it seriously. The job contains the word "dignity" and he's dressed up as if he is going to play golf or some stupid man activity.

He was appointed by the same person who appointed him to his 2 previous jobs (a previous work colleague). Also the job was only advertised for 9 days in an unusual category so would have been hard to find. Shoe-in springs to mind.

I wonder if she made the necessary 'potential conflict of interest' (or whatever it's called at Dundee Council) during the appointment process.

The appointment panel are supposed to declare if they know a candidate, and in what capacity, and for how long they have known them. Well, in normal councils using normal recruitment processes they do. The panel chair then takes legal advice from the 'city solicitor' (or equivalent) or another senior council solicitor about how to proceed. Sometimes it's ok to go ahead but it must be declared.

This stinks.

While I applaud the SNP for leading the world on period rights, this is a serious misstep. Not only is he the wrong sex for periods, he worked for a tobacco company!

Aside from anything else, does Jason have a 'relevant degree', as per the job spec? I'm pretty sure he would have mentioned it somewhere if he did.

The palaver we had to go through when it turned out the candidate knew one of the interviewers recently. Had to speak to them both separately, couldn't use the scores, HR were involved. We would have changed the interviewer but that wasn't possible.

I wonder if any women in Dundee who would have been qualified/applied can make a complaint.

I wonder if any women in Dundee who would have been qualified/applied can make a complaint.

Any woman in Dundee (or Tayside) would be more qualified than this man. Oh, but she wouldn't possess the magic penis that makes men qualified to do everything and anything.

Never mind...

I'm looking forward to the results of the FOI request. Well done, Gail, whoever you are.

Angus Council have said no: www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/period_dignity_regional_lead_off_3

But said Dundee and Angus College may have the information.

The same request has already been made to Dundee and Angus College, and they're due to reply by 14 September: www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/period_dignity_regional_lead_off

I just find the whole thing bizarre, looking at one of the photos where Mr. Grant is pictured, showing period products to a family group
I cannot imagine what the young girl had asked her mother, which the mother felt she couldn't answer or deal with to help her daughter
So, off they go to talk to Mr. Grant who obviously must have a great deal of experience of such things and knows all there is to know
No point in asking your mum/other female relative/female teacher at school etc.
Ask a man!

Sums up my thoughts exactly.

So now it has been reported bu the Courier that Jason is on 'annual leave' (for a job he just started?) and cannot be reached. Furthermore, he has deleted his own Twitter account (which had a new profile picture of him grinning in a bright red shirt announcing his new post).

Has Jason realised he's been used as a publicity stunt?

I still can't figure out why the job exists. Really what a waste of money.

oooo link please!

@colouringindoors
twitter.com/thecourieruk/status/1560251493185355777

Deleted Twitter profile: twitter.com/JLgrant86

Just reading through the hashtag #JustAskJason on Twitter...

I wonder if she made the necessary 'potential conflict of interest' (or whatever it's called at Dundee Council) during the appointment process.

The appointment panel are supposed to declare if they know a candidate, and in what capacity, and for how long they have known them. Well, in normal councils using normal recruitment processes they do. The panel chair then takes legal advice from the 'city solicitor' (or equivalent) or another senior council solicitor about how to proceed. Sometimes it's ok to go ahead but it must be declared.

The appointment panel must now be on a bit of a sticky wicket with all the ongoing investigations and questions from newspapers as well.

It's a measure of how I'll judged the whole thing has been - clearly they wanted to publicise the project and Jason as the face of the project but it never occurred to them that there might be objections to having a man appointed to the post and it surely never occurred to them that anyone would ask questions about the appointment process.

Not sure if it was this thread or the other, a poster mentioning how when appointments where an internal candidate had basically already been chosen the job would purposely be advertised in the wrong section so no one would see it.

I don't understand how this works - nhs here, we have been recruiting in my department, as far as I know my manager agrees with a higher up manager the need to advertise, I think she lists criteria and sends it to HR for them to put together. I don't understand how one can tell HR "we know who we want so can you put the advert somewhere where appropriate candidates won't see it". Obviously that's not how it's done but I'm genuinely baffled at the process behind dreaming up the advertisement for this job, and giving it a very short window for applications and hiding it in a different occupational section.

Also it's perfectly acceptable to put "internal candidates only" isn't it? That obviously weeds out external candidates and also tips the wink to internal candidates who can make enquiries and basically find out if someone has already been earmarked and save themselves the bother of apply for something they won't get. Or decide they are better than the chosen one and go for it, successfully in some cases, at least that's how it works in my hospital.

It's just all quite odd, and very naive to think questions wouldn't be raised.

*ill judged

Autocorrect insists on an apostrophe it doesn't recognise the word ill.

If they’d acknowledged the optics of this and stressed that it was primarily a bureaucratic role (which in in reality it surely must be or the appointment is batshit in every way) then they could have headed off much of this. Given the people who were deemed appropriately qualified to make the appointment are all female that suggests that the majority of those working in this and related fields are likely be female. I wonder how many applicants there were and what the sex ratio of this applicants was.

I see there are lots of relevant questions already raised. But I was wondering if it's a Tay Cities (or should that be Tayside?) regional lead what's happened to Perth & Kinross apart from the link with the college.

I quickly found the PKAVS tampon taxi site at www.tampontaxi.org and also noticed from their Facebook page that last month they had advertised for an Empowering Communities Development Officer (Fairness and Dignity) with what seems a broader remit "Period dignity, food insecurity, digital inclusion and child poverty are examples of workstreams we seek this post to address." for a 28 hour week "salary of £19,772.80 per annum (Full time equivalent would be £24,716 per annum)" .

BarryBiscuit
The job spec says that it is a mix of office and outreach and that it will be some evenings too, depending on community need. In the first Courier article, he said himself that he can be a male role model. It is definitely not just an office job, if that's what you mean by bureaucratic?