#DontSubmitToStonewall - suggested quick action by Legal Feminist

[stumbledin]

(From twitter post)

A follow up on the Stonewall long read: this one is a very short call for a simple (2-3 minute) action.

Please share widely. #DontSubmitToStonewall twitter.com/hashtag/DontSubmitToStonewall?src=hashtag_click

Please share and submit a request or two. Whatdotheyknow.com makes it very straightforward. If you don't dare ask your own public authority employer, maybe swap with a friend.

legalfeminist.org.uk/2021/02/04/shining-a-light-on-stonewalls-activities/?_thumbnail_id=451

It totally is!

@nothingcomestonothing

This is my favourite response so far: www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/information_about_your_dealings_495#outgoing-1117785

My irony meter just exploded!

I love the requestor’s response to the public body’s query. Perhaps the information is needed so they can decide whether it’s the pink or blue gulag you need sending to for your reeducation.

That’s appalling Quadzilla. Who the hell do Stonewall think they are waving away terms used in the Equality Act and why are organisations meekly going along with it? It is gobsmacking.

On the Calderdale emails disclosed, they’ve redacted some info on the HTML version that is not redacted on the downloadable version. Tsk tsk tsk. Although that particular SW employees first name is so...unusual, it’s not difficult to work out who they/them is anyway!

I have to say I did spend some time thinking how that employees name could be pronounced.
It reminded me of a certain Brass Eye episode

(this is stonewall comments upon the council’s monitoring of employees, scrutinising “data collection methods, analysis and outcomes.”): (bolding to highlight the )

Have awarded for sexual orientation monitoring questions, however, best practice to keep gender and sexuality questions completely separate; e.g. not 'gay man' or 'gay woman/lesbian'. Gay/lesbian should be included as a single option, rather than having separate options for gay man and gay woman/lesbian. This means that people of all gender identities can choose the option that best suits them. You can cross-reference gender identity and sexual orientation data to break down responses from different groups e.g. responses from gay men and responses from gay women/lesbians. Stonewall also advises using the umbrella term 'bi' as opposed to 'bisexual'.
Some good work monitoring recruitment and appointment and pay of LGB employees. Next steps are to do the same for trans colleagues, starting with updating monitoring questions to make sure accurate data is gathered around trans status of staff.
Unfortunately could not award for some of the data analysis, for reasons including erasure of non-binary identities in pay analysis, and also inclusion of 'prefer not to state' in total of disclosure rates.

By doing this, transwomen ticking the ‘gay/lesbian’ option - right - are indistinguishable from adult human female lesbians in the data. Same for gay men. There is no way to actually assess how many gay and lesbian staff you actually have as sex is being erased completely and replaced with self-identifed gender.

How does that fit with responsibilities under the Equality Act to not discriminate by sex?

Actually actually. Sorry. I’m actually

I also wondered how it fits in with the requirement for public bodies to balance the rights of each protected characteristic.
As I said previously, my Council is not woke which is why Stonewall have recommended changes to their thinking/brainwashing. They’ve recommended they speak to Leeds Council for ideas to improve their position on the Index.
Hopefully Calderdale will be far too busy dealing with the impact of flooding, Covid and a drop of £100 million in their budget to pay much attention to Stonewalls demands.

I've just seen on twitter that the MOJ have said that it would be too costly to list all their interactions with stonewall over the last year- so have refused to answer the FOI request. Given their policy on prisons it seems more important for the public to know how much they have paid to and how many man hours they have spent with the SW lobby group
twitter.com/legalfeminist/status/1366815772144787457?s=19

[quote Mumofgirlswholiketoplaywithmud]I've just seen on twitter that the MOJ have said that it would be too costly to list all their interactions with stonewall over the last year- so have refused to answer the FOI request. Given their policy on prisons it seems more important for the public to know how much they have paid to and how many man hours they have spent with the SW lobby group
twitter.com/legalfeminist/status/1366815772144787457?s=19[/quote]
Wow. That's almost an answer in itself, isn't it? "Too many to mention, my dear!"

I'm getting so furious about all this. I hope someone has/does re-submit the FoI request in smaller chunks. I would but am wary of my name and details being put out there.

Gay/lesbian should be included as a single option, rather than having separate options for gay man and gay woman/lesbian.

Aaaahhhh .....so THAT's where the census question came from! it came from Stonewall. verbatim from Stonewall.

Hello @allmywhat - thank you so much for your brilliant work on the #DontSubmitToStonewall campaign.

Is this campaign for public sector only?

ah just seen it is. Is there something similar for private sector?

I don't think the private sector have the same responsibilities to respond to such requests but I see now reason why you couldn't use the text to ask similar questions. There are legal responsibilities around single sex facilities and it would raise awareness of the exemptions that are permitted under the EA2010.

I'm having enormous fun with my FOIs. I'm so rock n'roll!

thanks for the reminder - it is quite interesting having a little browse on whatdotheyknow.com.

The Bristol NHS CCG spent £2500 on Stonewall membership in 2019!

The CQC unilaterally decided to remove Sex as a protected characteristic from their HR Equalities policies and have apparently decided that it is not a problem!!

HM Land Registry spent £3,000 in 2019

and then £6418.80 in 2020 but they won't tell us what for, claiming disclosure exemption being detrimental to Stonewall's commercial revenue.....

(Isn't a bit dodgy that government departments are spending money with external organisations but won't tell us what it is for?)

BUT their Stonewall membership expired in Feb 2021 and they haven't yet decided whether to renew it or not. Is there hope??

I'm having enormous fun with my FOIs. I'm so rock n'roll!

I'm going to join you - it is fascinating to have a browse through....

The government money is what gets to me really, especially as Stonewall have received so much government money in the past, though I'm hoping that since their definitions, practices and widespread influence is now well known in the halls of Parliament it won't be quite so much in coming years.

It is taxpayer money after all.

The NHS FOIs are quite interesting in general and there is a prolific FOI Requestor named John Brown who joined in 2016 who has done 1,300 FOIs!

go John Brown!!

I'm on universities now.. Oxford University £2500 to be Stonewall Champion - membership continuing this year.

University of Salford £2500 membership continuing

Cardiff University seem to have a more expensive deal:
2018/19 - £6,812.05
2019/20 - £6,300

membership until Sept 2021.

Reading University, I'm not sure what they spent but they got a ticking off for using 'gendered terms' in relation their family policies - they mentioned 'employee of either sex'

Who funds universities again......???

Good grief (sorry I'll go and do something else in a minute) - the 'Kernow Clinical Commissioning Group' (Cornwall) paid £9966 in 2020 to Stonewall. Apparently they are waiting for further funding to be approved, because obviously they've got soo much money sloshing around..

Despite all that money and apparent effort they put in, the Cornwall CCG received this feedback - slap on the wrist for them!

Trans Policy - Nothing offered - No policy/policies to support trans employees, including people with NB IDs. Stonewall has guides to help develop this and will review policies before final publication. Would like to see that organisations have gone above and beyond the law in doing so and talk about different identities.

Unfortunately could not award for some of the data analysis, for reasons including erasure of non-binary identities in pay analysis, and also inclusion of 'prefer not to state' in total of disclosure rates.

This is ridiculous isn't it? The GPG gap compares male and female so there's no way of using any non-binary identities in pay analysis! Same with equal pay legislation.

and also inclusion of 'prefer not to state' in total of disclosure rates.

Again, ridiculous. If people prefer not to complete monitoring then that's their choice. The scale of opting out is very relevant to the analysis.

People don't want their private lives to be MONITORED at work. They don't want to engage with it.

Looking back at this thread, I still find the MoJ response positively terrifying and wonder if this stone being turned might reveal capture we would be really concerned about (not that the rest isn't).

New Legal Feminist Thread on Stonewall FOIAs:

This FOI response from
@NHSBSA
to a #DontSubmitToStonewall request makes surprising reading: www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/725207/response/1763098/attach/5/No%20Disclosure.pdf

Another body that appears not to understand that the risk of reputational damage when your activities come to light is much of the point of the Freedom of Information Act.

Or that FOIA is "purpose blind": if you ask a public authority for information, and none of the exemptions applies, they have to provide it. It doesn't matter why you want it.

The
@nhsbsa
makes the same mistake again at ¶2 of their response:

At ¶3, the writer borrows a concept ("fishing") from disclosure in litigation - to which very different principles apply.

He also complains that the request doesn't describe the information sought, which is odd because many other public authorities have had no difficulty comprehending identically-worded requests, and responding fully.

Then at ¶4 he complains that the request is not in the spirit of FOI.

This calls to mind the attempt by the hapless lawyer in the Australian film 'The Castle' to rely on "the vibe" of the Australian constitution;

Finally, the writer says the information is of little or no value to the public.

If
@nhsbsa
had thought of an arguable exemption to rely on, there might be a balancing exercise to which public interest could be relevant. But "the information you're asking for is boring and unimportant" is not in general an answer to a FOI request.

As so often: the information itself may not be terribly interesting. What draws the eye is the attempt to hide it. End/

could be why Stonewall are spending so 'much time on FOI requests'...