Welsh Assembly and the lost equality impact assessment

[thatdamnedwoman]

The Welsh Assembly produced a 'Welsh Government Action Plan to advance equality for transgender people' in 2016

gov.wales/atisn13028

and said that an impact assessment had been carried out.

A Freedom of Information request was issued on March 2019 asking to see the impact assessment. The Impact assessment appears to have been lost. No trace of it anywhere — even though the Action Plan to Advance Equality for Transgender people mentions the importance of Impact Assessments. Here's the correspondence:

tinyurl.com/y6kxt29n

(I've had to do tinyurl as the original link was so long) It links to whatdotheyknow.com

If anyone here is sitting around at home today with nothing special to do you could check your local council (and possibly also town council and even parish council) on line and find out what resources/ action plans/ policies they have relating to transgender issues. If you find any, you could then use the letters in the whatdotheyknow link above as a template for making an FOI request asking about impact assessments.

My guess is the Welsh Assembly won't be the only body pushing change through without considering the impact on half the population. Let's help reveal this as the scandal we know it to be.

Just done a quick search on my CC website (which is in any case truly woeful) and came up with absolutely nothing containing the word transgender. This is Powys.

Those are two brilliant articles and I’m astonished at the fact there doesn’t appear to be any twisting of words or implication of ‘terfness’.

A number of GC women met this evening to agree a plan of action re this appalling dereliction of duty (polite way of putting it) by Welsh Government. Inspired by some of you we also have a hash-tag: #TheDogAteMyEIA
#WelshGovIgnoringWomen
If you are on Twitter / SM please use it and share it.

Love #ThedogatemyEIA

That's gonna catch on.

Great #tag. Well done those women for meeting and pursuing this,

#TheDogAteMyEIA

I love it

FOIrequester posted a link on page 3 of this thread to the 'Transform Cymru Toolkit': youthcymru.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/39880-YC-TransForm-Toolkit-English-Final.pdf
"GUIDANCE FOR YOUTH ORGANISATIONS: CREATING AN INCLUSIVE SPACE FOR TRANS YOUNG PEOPLE "

This was funded by the Welsh Government. Dated September 2015.

It's 79 pages long.

The phrase "Equality Impact Assessment" does not appear at all in this 79-page document.

Working my through it, but it is difficult.

I asked Welsh Government if an Equality Impact Assessment had been carried out for the 'Trans*form Cymru Toolkit'. This is what they said:

"With regard to the Trans*Form Cymru project which was undertaken by Youth Cymru, the Toolkit was created by a group of trans young people to help organisations and individuals understand the issues which affect them...Youth Cymru is a Company and Registered Charity. It is not, therefore, included in the list of public bodies required to comply with the PSED under the Equality Act 2010. Consequently, they would not be obliged to undertake an Equality Impact Assessment in respect of their policy work."

Worth an email to David TV Davies MP? The one MP who has been engaged and active on the issue right from the start is Welsh, and so in a good position to ask well placed questions.

Thank you for your reply, FOIrequester. And many thanks for what you're doing.

So, the Welsh Government itself is actually funding groups "not, therefore, included in the list of public bodies required to comply with the PSED* under the Equality Act 2010."

*Public Sector Equality Duty

This stinks.

As part of the Transgender Action Plan, Welsh Government also funded Welsh Women's Aid to "issue guidance in 2015-16 to their member organisations on providing accessible services to meet the needs of transgender survivors of domestic abuse and sexual violence; deliver training to domestic abuse services on meeting the needs of transgender survivors of domestic abuse and sexual violence."

Also a charity, so would not be required to do an Equality Impact Assessment.

This is the document produced by Welsh Women's Aid.

www.welshwomensaid.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/WWA-Transgender-Policy-and-Procedural-Guidance-INTERNAL.pdf

Surely how they implement things (whether directly or through purchases services from third party suppliers) does not change their public sector equality duty?

When these organisations are funded by public money - then surely, they should be subject to Equality Impact Assessments.

They should not be, e.g. the Women's Aid.

www.welshwomensaid.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/WWA-Transgender-Policy-and-Procedural-Guidance-INTERNAL.pdf

In accordance with the Equality Act 2010, Welsh Women’s Aid (WWA) aims to create an inclusive community where people are enabled to meet their full potential and are treated as individuals. This includes recognising, supporting and understandinga person’s preferred gender identity.

This is supposed to be Welsh Women's Aid.

Surely, Women's Aid was established to provide aid for women?

FOIrequester I think now they seem to have given the final "run along" on the FOI front, it might be worth pursuing on the equalities front. The issue seems to have moved from "where is this document?" to "OK, you admit it doesn't exist, why doesn't it?" and I'm not sure that's a question FOI can answer.

Thanks for pursuing this, you are an inspiration.

Will be using some of the weekend to write to my Welsh Assembly members about this casual lack of Equality Impact Assessment, (that got eaten by the dog, and in two languages!) when it comes to the rights of women and girls

Plus the fact that the Welsh Government is actually financing trans dogma.

It is disgusting.

There is a lot of relevant discussion on this current threat about enforcing the Equality Act.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3651589-Enforcing-the-Equality-Act

@thatdamnedwoman
the Vale of Glamorgan did do a tick-box EqIA on its Transgender Toolkit for schools. It didn't see "girls" as a protected characteristic, nor 'muslim'. Individual girls who are unhappy with shared toilet/washing/changing facilities are supposed to find other provision, rather than the self-IDing trans boy-to-girl. I can supply the EqIA if you ask me on [email protected]

Responding to OccasionalKite :
Women's Aid can under EqAct 2010 discriminate only in favour of women as per the protected characteristic - sex. Transwomen are men as the EHRC guidance of 2018 stated, so are males in the non-binary category that the Welsh Womens Aid guidance seeks to include. If they do include such categories of men which are not ProtChar in the EqAct, then they have to allow all men. They could choose to include 'women' and 'transsexuals' as coming under the ProtChar of gender reassignment, but not all 'trans' people. It's time Welsh Womens Aid policy was challenged as in breach of the EqAct 2010. My sister started up and gave years of her life to Womens Air in Aberystwyth; family loyalty motivates me to defending what she helped create.

Caerphilly county is trying to shut a leisure centre. There’s a lot of opposition and protests locally according to the press.
The protestors got a judicial review of the proposed closure a couple of months ago and judge was not impressed with the EqI A, as it didn’t address each protected group fully so the closure is on hold.
It seems to me that if a judge can halt a leisure centre closure in a small village with plenty of other facilities in nearby towns then surely the lack of one for a national policy that impacts a significant proportion of the population wouldn’t be well received.

This is an extremely interesting conversation, and thanks to all further contributions of information.

Hi @FOIrequester ! Really pleased to see you here! It was me who passed on the tip about your FOI Request to Welsh Resisters via a local Resister contact. (I am Welsh but in exile )

I search "What Do They Know" regularly in case there are any relevant FOI requests and I must have used a slightly different search term this time because it was the first time your FOI appeared in Search Results.

I was gobsmacked when I read the correspondence - and cheering you on for your persistence!

The arrogance of that blasé "Now run away and play" response from the Welsh Govt that, as the GRA Reforms had been kicked into the long grass, that they weren't going to bother themselves doing a new EIA to replace the "lost" one.

I don't see how they can get away with claiming that as the Trans Plan was produced by an external body that an EIA is not required. If the Welsh Govt was thinking of adopting any plan they would still need to do an EIA. Pathetic attempt to wriggle out of their responsibilities! (They obviously did not realise that they were dealing with a Shero of the Women's Resistance!! - More flowery tributes! )

@thatdamnedwoman if it was you who sent "hugs" via the Resisters Bush Telegraph - received - thank you!!

(Have to confess that getting this out into the wider world reminded me of this )

www.dailymotion.com/video/xtd7s7

Berthatydfil

I didn't realise EIA could be used in this way, that's very reassuring and gives me hope.

I've submitted an FOI request to Birmingham City Council for their impact assessment undertaken before they finalised and issued their Trans Toolkit for Schools

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/transtoolkittandequalityyimpac#outgoing-926473