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.

Wonder if they got paid for "consultancy" work on that, dontdoxmeeither?

From the website, quirky and arty though it is, it looked like nothing has been going on at all, ever - very odd.

Did you have a look at the Job Descriptions? I didn't, so don't know if they help to shed any light.

Job description c+p

Dear Applicant,
Thank you for your interest in this post.
Viva LGBT+ - is part of West Rhyl Young People’s Project (WRYPP). We are looking for an experienced, highly motivated and enthusiastic lesbian, gay, bisexual or trans (LGBT+) Youth Worker to lead a team providing support and informal education for young people who identify themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or trans, or who may be questioning or unsure of their sexual and/or gender identity.
An important aspect of this role is for the post holder to serve as a positive LGBT+ role model to young people.
Viva LGBT+ aims to make contact with and engage young people who are currently experiencing social exclusion due to their emergent sexual orientation and/or gender identity and to provide them with a safe environment and opportunities to meet others of the same age to develop friendships and to explore the issues of importance to them.
The Youth Work Curriculum Statement for Wales states: “Youth work is driven by the voluntary principle which recognises that young people have the right to choose whether to engage with youth work provision”.
LOCATIONS
You will facilitate groupwork sessions and conduct outreach work with young people in a variety of settings in various locations across Denbighshire, Conwy, Flintshire and Wrexham. You will be required to work at up to 3 of the 4 sites each week.
EQUALITY AND DIVERSITY
All staff of West Rhyl Young People’s Project are responsible for upholding high standards of inclusivity, as required by the Equality Act 2010, when planning and delivering youth work. All staff must ensure that pro-active, anti-oppressive practice is adopted at all times; in line with the WRYPP’s Equality and Diversity Policy.
The ability to communicate in Welsh is particularly desirable.

Also, this

From the annual report of the charity-

"Transactivists Project
The Transactivists project saw parents and carers of Transgender, gender neutral, pangender and gender fluid young people develop a positive network of peer support, using the insights of other parents in similar situations to help them navigate their child’s coming out journey. Young people took ownership of the project and received training in community development. This enabled them to engage with service providers to advocate for more trans-inclusive services; for example, scrutinising the drafts of Denbighshire County Council’s new Trans Policy for Schools (which was developed by the staff of the Viva Transactivist Project with input from the beneficiaries and from school staff). At the same time, young people who were previously isolated were given time and space to meet new people, form friendships and ultimately develop a self-sustaining network of peers who could be called upon for support outside of the group. When surveyed, 97% of the respondents stated that they felt less lonely and isolated and had experienced improved social opportunities and friendships as a result of their involvement with Transactivists.

I'm on a roll. Just checked my sons school policy (new) and under Equality (I'm totally paraphrasing) is the requirement to train new staff (just new?) on the LGBT guidelines and the people responsible for that are-

Headteacher
A.N. Other

and....VIVA

It all sounds a lot of fun, very empowering, etc. (not joking) but . . . incredibly amateurish and unaware of the need to involve and consult other stakeholders.

There must be someone / some other organisation guiding this, surely??

I've made another attempt to get some information about the EIA for the Transgender Action Plan.

www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/information_about_the_equality_i

This may be my last FOI on this. I've also written to my constituency AM and some of my regional AMs about the loss of the EIA.

MoleSmokes I had seen the Wrexham guidance, but it's quite old now, which is why I chose Denbighshire for the FOI, as it was a recent policy, and it also stated it was 'policy' rather than 'guidance'. I'm not sure if there's a requirement to carry out an EIA for 'guidance', but a policy definitely has that requirement.

Viva look like a bunch of enthusiastic amateurs. I don't know what makes them qualified to write policy for schools.

New reply from Welsh Government following my request for an internal review.

www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/documents_relating_to_the_equali#incoming-1444828

They say that all relevant emails would have been automatically deleted and that formal minutes are not required for all internal meetings, so they have no more information other than the single document they supplied previously.

It's quite a long response and includes a link to their retention and disposal schedule, which I had already seen, but I can't see anything in there about deleting all emails over a year old.

They have also supplied another document embedded in the Word document. I will ask them to extract it, since their response should be in an easily accessible format. It's the summary of consultation responses which I posted a link to earlier in this thread.

They can't establish the existence of an important public interest document they claim once existed. Seeing a pattern with this and other FOI responses around this issue across the country.

They can't establish the existence of an important public interest document they claim once existed.

It's absolutely ludicrous isn't it. Perhaps they could just confirm those exact words.

but I can't see anything in there about deleting all emails over a year old.

So where does the directive come from that has made them delete all the emails? Another question they need to answer. Otherwise we could all say that any old time. Oh, we delete everything after a year, six months, three days, this phone call.

They must be going through a lot of ice packs over there, FOIrequester, given how many feet are being held to the fire.

Brilliant stuff. Well done. Tenacity will rule.

I don't think deleting all emails after a year is in line with the transparency agenda for public services. I'm sure you're heartily tired of this FOI but if you want to escalate I think it's through the ICO.

“I can assure you x, y and z took place”

But you can’t assure me, can you, because you can’t provide receipts. I continue to be really quite amazed at the shocking lack of care and attention in so many sectors of government. I mean, FFS, how long have they been getting away with this sort of shit that they thought it was acceptable?

Massive thank you FOI bloody brilliant effort

Do you ever wonder if somebody is fibbing?

This might be a useful reference document re retention and autodelete of emails.
www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/information-management/guidance-principles-on-the-deletion-of-email.pdf

Essentially saying we autodelete everything after a year is not good enough they need to apply a bit more thought than that

Oh dear

Either they’re incompetent or they’re lying

Nice choice

I asked for documents between 19/11/2014 and 14/03/2016, which are the date on which the Transgender Action Plan was first debated in the Assembly and the the date of publication respectively. They are saying that all emails from the start of this period would have been automatically deleted before the publication date.

How can a government formulate policy when they are automatically deleting some of the relevant correspondence before the policy is finalised?

This is the Retention and Disposal Schedule they sent me. gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2019-04/Retention%20%20Disposal%20Schedule.pdf

I can't find anything in there about destroying email correspondence after 1 year - the retention times for various types of correspondence are all longer than that. They also seem to have some sort of archiving system called iShare, which is where these documents should end up, so they should still be able to search through that database and find anything relevant.

Thanks for that link Victoria. I'll have a look at that later.

I'll add their new response to my current complaint with the ICO. They've said I can add any more correspondence I have with Welsh Government while the case is open.

Well done, FOI.

Another update on the Denbighshire schools policy FOI. I've just had a response to the internal review. They have sent the same document again with a bit more detail about what they are doing for trans children, but they have still only considered one of the protected characteristics covered by the Equality Act.

www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/equality_impact_assessment_for_t_4#incoming-1450108

Wellbeing Impact Assessment

I don't think they understand what an Equality Impact Assessment is for. In both versions of their Impact Assessment they have included this paragraph:

"The policy...Will provide information that will allow schools to feel confident that they are complying with the Equality Act 2010 and meeting their Public Sector Equality Duty obligations and the specific requirements of safeguarding legislation."

But their policy doesn't comply with the PSED because they have failed to carry out an Equality Impact Assessment taking into account all the protected characteristics.

I would be deeply unsurprised if most Equality Impact Assessments nationwide have been done on the same principles.

Which would explain a LOT.

What can be done about this? Who could be regarded as accountable for this?

Thank you @FOIrequester - this is so important.
Solidarity.

What can be done about this? Who could be regarded as accountable for this?

Perhaps the Equalities and Human Rights Commission?

Is it not this organisation which exists to ensure that the Equality Act 2010 is applied properly in all circumstances?

I haven’t got any links to hand but the EHRC are fucked and have drunk the kool aid from what I can remember. I seem to think they have issued some deeply suspect schools advice which is utterly dismissive of sex-based rights.

EHRC are useless. Not fit for purpose.

"We have considered the issues you raise but we do not agree that the loss of an EIA document is a serious breach of equality duty."

So there you go. Makes you wonder what would be a serious breach. Wrong pronouns I suppose.