When, legally, must ONS change their guidance?

[MapGirlExtraordinaire]

I've just been reading through yesterday's chat thread about the ONS ruling. Thanks to all who tweeted and commentate, really good to read it as it unfolded.

I just checked back on ONS's twitter, also their website, and it's as though the ruling never happened.

They're answering all sorts of questions from people about access codes, stating overnight. They have not tweeted anything about guidance changing

In their website they have a section about what to put under sex, the various considerations etc. I must admit I haven't read them all but in the segment called 'Final guidance' the following was included (see pic).

So it's been nearly 24 hours and no action following the ruling.

Anyone know what the legal requirement is?

Pretty sure the timing was "with immediate effect".

It's a quick website edit so any delay will not look good next week, unless it can be explained somehow.

The guidance itself was updated yesterday evening, even though they haven't publicised it.

twitter.com/lnmackenzie1/status/1369342344298967047

somehow

It has been changed, maybe you've got a cached copy of the page

census.gov.uk/help/how-to-answer-questions/online-questions-help/what-is-your-sex

I took my screenshot half an hour ago Necessary, and I found the page just before that by googling 'census what should I put for sex'

Can you give the link to the page you found? I got to the one I've shown from following links to help in their website. Maybe they've not cleaned up everything yet.

It's largely a symbolic action, as most TRA's will probably ignore it or not read the guidance.

Thanks Errol.

You linked to census.gov.uk

I looked on ons.gov.uk/census

www.ons.gov.uk/census/censustransformationprogramme/questiondevelopment/genderidentity/census2021finalguidanceforthequestionwhatisyoursex

Surely both need updating? I wasn't being obtuse, I googled the most obvious phrase I could think of to get directly to the most up to date guidance.

You may need to clear your local cache - hitting "refresh" might not be sufficient. (The original page will have been sent with some sort of "valid for X hours/days" marker telling your browser how long to keep it).

OP is correct, it still mentions passports here www.ons.gov.uk/census/censustransformationprogramme/questiondevelopment/genderidentity/census2021finalguidanceforthequestionwhatisyoursex#final-what-is-your-sex-question-guidance-for-census-2021

Not sure how to do that easily on my phone, but I will investigate.

I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've ever loaded the page though so I doubt it's cached from a previous visit...? Might be wrong

Surely both need updating?

Hmm, that's a document about how they came up with the guidance, rather than what you'll be linked to from the census form, but as it does contain a copy of the original disputed guidance, it seems like they should stick some sort of note on that page that this so-called "final guidance" is no longer valid.

Those appear from the urls to be pages about how they developed the questions. Not the actual current guidelines.

True Mishi, but it will be illegal to fill it in incorrectly, and the law matters.

If people choose to ignore the law then that's a separate question which requires separate answers and actions. The law needs to be correct.

I started my link-clicking at ons.gov.uk/census and got to the page I showed not the 'development' one.

I really wasn't trying to catch anyone out! I just wanted to see if the guidance was corrected, and rather than go to census.gov.uk. uk and follow links i googled a sensible question to be taken to a highly ranked answer. I saw ONS owned the answer, rather than eg mumsnet, twitter etc, so I clicked 🤷‍♀️

Glad it's been updated in some places, hopefully some public statement announcing this guidance will follow at some point

I tried your search in Google and DuckDuckGo, the top hits were all MSM articles about the legal challenge and change. I don't think many will find the document you did noe unless they're really trying tbh, and have ignored the others.

So the ONS have ignored the ruling - is that because they intend to appeal?

But it's good you found it in case someone posts the screenshot as a gotcha!

@Thelnebriati

So the ONS have ignored the ruling - is that because they intend to appeal?

They haven't. See my link and screenshot.

archive.is/nXhnQ

Archived and timestamped. I think you're right, OP, they really should have updated this too or added a note to it, especially since it's easily possible to find this page via Google instead of the updated page.

I guess we've got quite different Google search parameters Errol!

I'll double check my precise words, must admit what I posted was a guess at the exact phrase

Phrase and results.

I obv ignored guardian and Times news stories and went straight to the top website hit

Time stamped as 12:30 because I navigated back to my original search page just now

Pic attempt 2

Maybe this just emphasises that my normal process of googling a reasonable phrase or question and taking the top hits, if hosted on a respectable UK gov FFS site, is not the right approach for finding info out.

I'm too lazy to go to a website and navigate through endless links, I want to be taken right to the answer.