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.

Well Conwy were doing inspections in schools a year ago. I did wonder who the inspectors were made up of. I know there was a legal person involved.

Thanks FOI , watching this space!

Bloody brilliant work!!

Talking of Welsh MPs - how about trying David TC Davies, Conservative Monmouth (was the Webberley's constituency)

www.david-davies.org.uk

Previously helpful on the GRA Reforms:

Questions to Women and Equalities Committee:

www.theyworkforyou.com/search/?q=section%3Awrans&pid=11719&phrase=Women+and+Equalities&exclude=&from=&to=&person=David+Davies&section=wrans&column=

Some Mumsnet Threads

www.mumsnet.com/SearchArch?mustmatch=David+Davies&dontmatch=&nickname=&src_displ_option=s_t_d_t&fromDate=&toDate=&topicmode=chs&availtops=16549&chosentops=5365

Currently Chair of the "Welsh Affairs Committee" so he might respond to a concern about "Welsh Affairs" rather than just to Constituency Issues, although it is a bit of long-shot:

Role of the Welsh Affairs Committee:
www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/welsh-affairs-committee/role/

Extract:

The principal powers of Select Committees

• to send for persons, papers and records
• to adjourn from place to place (i.e. to travel and to meet away from Westminster)
• to appoint Specialist Advisers

"In practice, the Welsh Affairs Committee, in common with the other departmental committees, prefers to proceed by consent, inviting the submission of written memoranda and inviting witnesses to appear before it."

By the by . . .

Another interesting FOI Request, from someone trying and failing to get answers to questions that David Davies MP asked in Parliament about meetings with trans lobby groups - now the subject of an FOI Review due to the House of Commons "misunderstanding" the request:

"David Davies question on how many times Stonewall, Gendered Intelligence and LGBT groups met and or attended Commissions, Ministers or staff generally."
www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/david_davies_question_on_how_man#incoming-1283253

Fair enough that the title of the request could be misleading but actual request was clear enough!

@OhGodWhatTheHellNow I'm Denbighshire! Hope it's not my DS'S school. We've already had the usual "update your details" form on the first day of term and one of the boxes asks "What is your child's Gender?" with a blank space to write it in (as opposed to multiple choice).

I wrote "Sex" under gender before writing "male"

Not mine dont - I'm secretary too and haven't sent those forms out yet! (Having a bad start to the year ).It does look like SIMS, the national school database, has added a load of gender id checkboxes over the summer, doesn't bode well.

@OhGodWhatTheHellNow @dontdoxmeeither

Response from Denbighshire Council has just arrived.
www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/equality_impact_assessment_for_t_4#incoming-1433779

They have supplied a "Wellbeing Impact Assessment". I haven't read the whole thing yet, but this doesn't seem to be an Equality Impact Assessment.

They say they don't yet have a list of schools where the policy has been implemented.

They have supplied a "Wellbeing Impact Assessment".

And that didn't fob you off? Oh dear.

How about an NCAP safety report on a Nissan Micra. That is, in a very real sense, an impact assessment.

If that is the quality of their assessments then it's a damning indictment of their competence.

Even if it just wellbeing rather than equality.

Incredible. Literally NO negative impacts to safety observed from this policy? None? Just blank spaces?

No policy has no drawbacks. This is work that would get you a warning, and if you kept it up, fired from a corporate workplace.

Thanks FOI, that was everything I expected it to be. No consideration of the impact on other protected characteristics. Denbighshire is a long way from the metropolitan centre and seems to be playing woke catch-up, blithely introducing policies that have already been thoroughly discredited elsewhere.

There has already been an issue at the local high school of girls not being able to use the toilets during the afternoon - I believe it was a discipline thing and boys were barred too but they don't have periods do they? The school is in special measures and quite run-down, would anybody take a bet that the first area for investment will be remodelling the single-sex toilets?

It states, no negative impact.

This is a generic document.
We don't know who they consulted.

Viva is an LGBT charity providing support meets for young people. Apparently.

But we don't know who they are, no expert knowledge, no analysis and no consultation of the group most affected by this, ie girls.

What a disgrace.

There is absolutely no way I'd sign off such a poor quality piece of shit work.

Whoever did that needs competency procedures to take place.

And it's not an EQIA. Swing and a miss.

FOIRequester

They really haven't got one have they? I bet sweat is pouring in buckets in central offices.

FOI requester - the lost impact assessment- is it possible to do an FOI request for all internal Welsh Govt correspondence pertinent to the search for the mysteriously lost impact assessment?

I still wonder if the duties under the Ending Violence against Women Act (or whatever it’s called) would be a useful stick to apply here.

Slightly off topic.
Our 'Council' run gyms haven't bothered to do risk assessments on changing to mixed sex changing rooms (the cubicles aren't floor to ceiling)

I spoke to their insurers (Zurich)

The crux of the issue is this... Until a woman or girl is subjected to an unwanted situation, it will be down to her to take it to court under sex discrimination laws.

How many traumatised women do you know who have the money or the inclination to re-traumatise themselves in a court of law?

@FOIrequester Thanks for that.

I notice it mentions infrastructure. I have asked DS if anything has changed toilet wise and he says not (so far, I guess)

I'll certainly keep my ear out for any awareness sessions and feedback.

Off to scrutinise my Denbighshire school website to see if anything has changed policy wise recently

The crux of the issue is this... Until a woman or girl is subjected to an unwanted situation, it will be down to her to take it to court under sex discrimination laws.

Wow.

Well done, OP.

This is what I wrote back to Denbighshire Council this morning:

"I requested the Equality Impact Assessment for the “Gender identity policy and implementation guidance” for schools in Denbighshire. You have sent me the Well-being Impact Assessment."

"There is an Equality section in this document, but most of the fields have been left blank. Do you also have a separate, detailed, Equality Impact Assessment for this policy? If so, please will you supply that as originally requested."

They sent this back:

"Internal Review Acknowledgement"

"I acknowledge receipt of your email received 19/09/2019 requesting that we review our response to FOI 5321 My understanding is that the issues you have raised are as follows: We did not send the correct document."

"A review will be conducted in accordance with the Act and we aim to respond to you by 17/10/2019 ."

I didn't actually ask for an internal review, but I suppose by doing it this way it gives them another month do decide what to do, or maybe they're just hoping I'll go away.

is it possible to do an FOI request for all internal Welsh Govt correspondence pertinent to the search for the mysteriously lost impact assessment?

I could do that, but I'm not sure if there'd really be any point. Are you thinking about this in terms of finding out whether they actually looked for it? I've already gone to the ICO with this one (still waiting to hear back from them though), so I'm hoping to find out more from their investigation.

Well done pursuing this, I think there's much in what you say that the process is long and tedious and they're making it more so, and (like the BBC) many people just give up.

It seems from what has happened that the EQIA doesn't exist and it seems that there's no evidence of it ever having existed. Which would suggest that the resulting document is invalid, and which would also seem to call into question why it appears that the need for the process was recorded, and why it looks from the final document as if one was done.

The results of the investigation will certainly be interesting.

And as always, it's not the offence, it's the cover-up.

Apologies if I'm being thick/ignorant

If they haven't done one, have they broken some kind of law (their own??) etc?

If so, is there a process whereby they can be for want of a better word, prosecuted for that?

What I'm clumsily trying to say is, they are clearly stringing this out probably in the hope that you'll give up. Is there a higher body that will make them sit up and respond quicker? Or is that the industry already contacted that hasn't responded yet?

FOIrequester This is the "Viva" organisation mentioned in "the wrong document":

www.vivalgbt.co.uk

It's in Rhyl and there's bugger all on the website apart from tattoo type hearts and a sheep wearing spotted pyjamas! They are hiring though and there are Job Descriptions to download so they might be rather more illuminating!

Have you and the Denbighshire / Wrexham people here already got copies of "Transgender Guidance for Wrexham Schools 2015"?
www.genderidentity.wales.nhs.uk/sitesplus/documents/1127/TransGender%20Guidance%20Schools%20Final.pdf

@MoleSmokes

I am very near Rhyl and in my (recently finished) last job would have definitely been aware of this group, had it been of any note. As it is, I've never heard of them! At all.

The website is scant. The Facebook page shows little activity bar some recent cancellation of events. Further digging shows it's part of a registered charity called West Rhyl Young people's project, which also wasn't very prominent during my employment.

It's certainly not an organisation that one would consult heavily for such a big issue/change. In my humble opinion. Not sure if any of that info is useful