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.

Thanks, Oldstyle.

Amazing work FOI.

This is such a contentious area though Birdsfoot - even in 2016 it was fraught. And this is a major policy plan, covering health, education, sport, transport, work... I'd have expected Welsh Government to have done more than give a minor official a red biro and told them to tick some boxes. But then I'd also have expected Welsh Government to actually complete an EIA as a 'living document' according to their own advice. Simple naive soul that I am.

Cardiff ReSisters have just tweeted that the Welsh Gov's missing EIA is reported in @Glinner's weekly roundup.
glinner.co.uk/another-week-in-the-war-on-women-27th-july-2nd-aug/amp/?__twitter_impression=true&fbclid=IwAR3ViPYrXXYUCRuQq88u0a0I3njZovAnY8ZTUelQyOtfzyzb1v36lkQ-eq0
Thanks Graham!

FOIrequester very well phrased new request, and I'm waiting with great interest to see what is produced. They won't be able to claim having 'lost' all of that.

Thank you for doing this, I and millions of women in the UK owe you a lot of drinks.

FOIrequester You are Ace!!!

Michelle It was your posts at the beginning of this thread that made me realise that more could be done to find out whether there ever was an EIA, and if so, what it contained. I hope I've phrased it in a way that will make it difficult for them to avoid giving me the information I'm asking for.

And well done MoleSmokes for alerting the GC Taffistas! I do hope that someone in Welsh Government is starting to feel a little uncomfortable at being called to account.

I think you've done it! Very happy to have given you ideas to take this further, cheering you on all the way. There must be accountability in this, as there always must for people working with public trust, public funds and for the public interest.

New FOI request.
www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/equality_impact_assessment_for_t_4

This is to Denbighshire Council in respect of their “Gender identity policy and implementation guidance”

This document consists of 52 pages about how to be inclusive to trans people. It mentions the Public Sector Equality Duty several times, but it doesn't mention Equality Impact Assessments at all.

My request:
I have been unable to find on your website the Equality Impact Assessment for your “Gender identity policy and implementation guidance” which you have produced for the use of schools in Denbighshire.
I am making a request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to be supplied with:

1. A copy of this Equality Impact Assessment.
2. A list of all schools in Denbighshire in which this policy has been implemented.

If they deleted it after receiving your FoI request, they would be in breach of the FOIA, so of course the date in which it was deleted is very relevant. From experience working in the civil service, it is almost impossible that a document disappears like that. Civil servants hold on to invoices for catering for 5 years FFS. It is obvious the IA was not carried out or gave a result that was not liked, so it was conveniently destroyed, or destroyed when you asked for it.

It is obvious the IA was not carried out or gave a result that was not liked, so it was conveniently destroyed, or destroyed when you asked for it.

I've now referred this to the Information Commissioner, but I don't know when to expect a response. I've also written to Mark Drakeford and Jane Hutt about the loss of the EIA and Welsh Government's failure to comply with the Public Sector Equality Duty. They have said they will respond by the first week in September. I will post on here when I get a reply.

FOIrequester

You are an absolute star.

this is amazing

it's chip by chip that this will be turned around

you are doing the goddesses work FOIrequester

Well done

Fascinating, isn't it?

It's almost like if it was done in a transparent, ordinary, open and law abiding way it wouldn't be possible.

Should I just leave this here?

www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/misconduct-public-office

FOIrequester thank you for being persistent.

The ICO have replied and said that my complaint "has been accepted as eligible for further consideration". They mention the large number of complaints they have to deal with and that there might be a delay before they do anything, so I'm expecting to have to wait a while for their next communication.

FOIrequester
It's clear that public authorities have not realised that there is a potential conflict when you implement this stuff for that one group with a protected characteristic. It makes one wonder how shallow the PSED process is and what else they are neglecting when they rubber stamp these things. They have no excuse to not put it right though.

FOIrequestor I suggest you keep reminding the ICO regularly you're waiting on a response and ask when it will be assigned to a caseworker and when they anticipate getting to your request. Otherwise it will languish in their 'to get to some day maybe' list with everything else.

They are unresourced and have too much to do to ever get it all done

Thanks for that advice AllNaturalWoman. I did wonder if that might be the case. I only got the acknowledgement today, so I will leave it a few weeks and if I don't hear from them I'll get in touch.

It makes one wonder how shallow the PSED process is

I think that a lot of organisations don't understand what it's for. If you read the Denbighshire schools document, it's clear that they think that they only have to consider transgender people in order to comply with the PSED when formulating a transgender policy. They don't seem to understand that it's about considering all protected groups who might be affected by the policy, not just transgender people.

They don't seem to understand that it's about considering all protected groups who might be affected by the policy, not just transgender people. If they don't then it's dereliction of duty (or even malpractice) since it's made abundantly clear in all the documentation. That's why councils have legal departments surely? I think it's just easier to ignore the requirements for all PCs with the expectation that most PC groups have neither the money nor influence to do anything about it. Whereas the mighty trans lobbyists have a plentiful supply of both. Though I accept I might be cynical about this whole sorry mess.
But thanks for keeping at it FOIrequester. Hope the media get hold of it soon - there does seem to be a shift in the direction of more critical reporting in this arena. As opposed to no reporting.

I have done a few EIA in my time. Even a pretty half baked low level EIA (e.g. for a policy that affected only a couple of hundred people) would need to have some consultation process (e.g. with local branch of trade union). To consult on it, you would share a current draft for comment, probably by e-mail. It is just not plausible that every person with whom it was shared during drafting and consultation deleted or destroyed it. Unless perhaps the draft was developed solely on a shared platform, which is possible if only civil servants were involved (although consultation should have been wider). But again, it is not easy to delete accidentally from that type of shared platform (if it was it could be disastrous for documents in development) and it would probably record who deleted it and when.

It is simply not plausible that one person wrote the EIA and did not consult or share with anyone. Even the crappiest EIA has to be shared. Otherwise what's the point of it?!

I imagine the information commissioner would be very interested.

If I was answering the correspondence I'd be perspiring a little at this point.

I’m finding this all really scary, in a Margaret Atwood kind of way.
Is it stupidity? Or something darker than that?