Does your Local Authority Equality Policy exclude sex as a protected characteristic?

[bananaistheanswer]

Inspired by Jean Hatchet's posts on twitter, I checked mine and colour me shocked, it's been excluded.

Attached below is the list from the EA2010 with my LA's interpretation alongside - note the wording We believe our responsibility for equality is wider than those areas covered by the Equality Act 2010

So removing sex from the list of protected characteristics widens the scope of the EA2010?

So what's your LA equality policy like?

Good idea R0wantrees I will thanks. I just feel so despondent. How can people be so ignorant?

There's no point reinventing the wheel... I'm sure that WPUK, Fairplay4Women will be able to help.

Twitter seems to be quite effective ( if you use it). Polite public requests for clarification seem to get a positive and prompt response.

Just checked

Theinconstantgardener send them the link that lemonjello posted:

“The EHRC said that ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ are not synonymous terms, and that ‘gender’ is not a protected characteristic.”

From here:
digitalpublications.parliament.scot/ResearchBriefings/Report/2017/9/14/Gender-Representation-on-Public-Boards--Scotland--Bill#Gender-representation-objective

Thanks

I've had an acknowledgement from the EHRC office I emailed about my LA on this.

"Thank you for your email. This has been past to our redacted legal team and someone will get back to you in due course.

Kind regards"

So tiny not-very-exciting-but-important progress

Thurrock Local council just put 'sex' back on their equality page and thanked me for pointing out the 'discrepancy'. That was easier than I expected.

It's worth checking your children's school Diversity & Equality policy as many will have (understandably) used their LA's as template.

Mine are grown now, but good point.

👍 great result train

Hi all

I've been lurking on this thread and I know its not strictly to do with LAs, but I wonder if by any chance any of you are a) doctors and b) in Scotland?

All trainee doctors in Scotland (i.e. almost all that aren't already consultants so everyone from newly graduated to up to 10+ years postgrad training) are being shifted onto new pay arrangements in August which mean we'll be managed more centrally. As a result we have ALL been sent out a "fitness to practice declaration". This is fairly standard when rotating to a new NHS job but it's a newly written generic NHS Scotland one. Previously each health board area had their own. This is one of the statements on the form

"NHS Scotland aims to promote equality of opportunity and is committed to treating all applicants for positions fairly and on merit regardless of race, gender, gender reassignment, marital status, pregnancy/maternity, religion or belief, disability, sexual orientation and/or age. We undertake not to discriminate unfairly against applicants on the basis of any information declared relating to any such protected characteristic."

I have written an email back to them using the template helpfully linked to earlier. I'm happy to keep you informed if you're interested in the NHS Scotland slant on this. I'm not feeling too positive. We have also been made to sign up to a new online dashboard which has a variety of equal opportunities stuff on it. You can say "do not wish to answer" for disability/ethnicity/sexuality/transgender but in addition to name and DoB you are forced to make a selection for "gender" and "marital status". On the old paper forms we filled in, it had "sex" and you could put "do not wish to answer" for marital status. I've queried this as well.

Thanks for the really helpful information in this thread, it's given me the confidence to query this with the powers that be, even if I do look like a "problem trainee" !!

fuck - if doctors can't understand the difference between sex and gender, we are all screwed....

Hi Caramel, I'd be interested in what comes back on this. Thanks for posting.

Yes that was my thinking too OlennasWimple
I'm hoping it was written up by some HR assistant in the central offices but it's going to cause them a massive headache if they acknowledge it needs changed.... we all (over 5000 of us) need to sign this form and return it so we can be paid in August

Caramel I looked at my local council pages (also Scotland) and the language used is almost identical to yours. I think it's been copy pasted from something direct from the Scottish Govt

Good God, it took them a while but a sensible reply:

Dear Dr xxxx

Thank you again for your email. Your comment has been taken on board and the Fitness to Practise document has been updated accordingly.

Additionally, we will add an option for 'do not wish to disclose' to the payroll staff engagement form.

Thank you for your comments and please accept our sincere apologies.

Kind regards

(I had also pointed out that they had removed the marital status option of "do not disclose" so pleased to see they're fixing that too)

Charities Commission: www.gov.uk/government/publications/equality-act-guidance-for-charities/equality-act-guidance-for-charities
3.2 What are protected characteristics?

The following are protected characteristics:
•age
•disability
•gender
•reassignment
•marriage and civil partnership
•pregnancy and maternity
•race
•religion or belief
•sex
•sexual orientation

Not sure if they are serious, or had a mix up with the bullet point option

Some councils after being informed that their policy documents are in violation of the EA have chosen to disregard the law and continue discriminating against women.

Is there any way of telling which councils on the spreadsheet have been contacted / still need to be contacted?

(Apologies if it's obvious and I missed it!)

It's all kicking off.

Three councils in Scotland have let the cat out of the bag.

In reply to enquiries, the three councils used a "cut and paste" standard reply that Stonewall had advised them that 'gender' was preferable to "sex" because it was more inclusive.

And this twitter thread shows what people think of Stonewall's interference:

twitter.com/Scottish_Women/status/1032006704718925824

Wow. Who do they think they are?

UNICEF are at it too. This is their summary of article 2 of the UN convention of Rights of a child.

'article 2 (non-discrimination)
The Convention applies to every child without discrimination, whatever their ethnicity, gender, religion, language, abilities or any other status, whatever they think or say, whatever their family background.'

It does include 'any other status' so you could say sex has been relegated to there.
This summary is used by many schools.

Mine says sex and then gender in brackets.

I wrote to them about a month a go, but there's been a stone wall of silence.

I'll write again and forward the tumble weed onto WPUK.

Ours contains the protected characteristics as per the equality act