Nottingham Council thinks pregnancy isn’t a protected characteristic but paternity is

[LoobiJee]

Thought this might merit its own thread, for any Nottingham residents.

Nottingham Council’s EDI Strategy (pg 5) lists “maternity and paternity” as the protected characteristic instead of the actual EA2010 protected characteristic which is “pregnancy and maternity”.

www.nottinghamcity.gov.uk/media/3374624/ncc-edi-strategy-2020-23.pdf

Ffs! I'm so absolutely sick to death of organisations rewriting the law

There are several plausible explanations here.

• Misunderstanding of the protected characteristics.
• Yet another attempt to create the laws of the future world as some people wish it to be irrespective of the consequences of the world that we inhabit. (NB: yes, I am anticipating future harms from including paternity given the current context of the overturning of Roe v Wade elsewhere and Nadine Dorries' recent attempt to restrict access to abortion.)

Off I go to check my own council's edi policies...
🙂

Nottingham again (see also the cancelling of Julie B’s event on VAWG because of her wrongthink on trans issues).

Yes, that thread was what prompted me to look at their EDI Strategy.

I downloaded some government guidance this week (The STPCD 2021 if anybody wants to check it out) that specified the protected characteristics as including Gender, not Sex.

That one definitely slipped through the net, as it referred directly to the Equality Act, which, as we all know, states Sex.

Anyone as irritated by this as i was can make an (anonymous) complaint at the below link.

It might be worth pointing out that it's outside the remit of a council to rewrite legislation, and in attempting to do so they leave themselves open to claims of discrimination. It might also be worth telling them that if the policy has not been updated within the next month, you will contact the EHRC.

By all means monitor and support other groups, but you can't just remove the ones you aren't interested in.

myaccount.nottinghamcity.gov.uk/service/Have_Your_Say

Link to include

www.nottinghamcity.gov.uk/information-for-residents/community/equality-diversity-and-inclusion/equality-and-diversity-policy-and-resources

I would have accepted misunderstanding of the PCs as a plausible explanation, were it not for the fact that page 5 specifically mentions EA2010.

So that leaves the plausible explanations as:

• person who is sufficiently senior to be drafting the Council’s three year EDI Strategy is not sufficiently familiar with/competent in the wonders of internet search engines to look up what EA2010 actually says;
• person who is sufficiently senior to be drafting the Council’s three year EDI Strategy is too lazy to look up what EA2010 actually says;
• person who is sufficiently senior to be drafting the Council’s three year EDI Strategy purposefully misrepresents the UK regulatory framework which provides the context for that EDI Strategy. Interestingly, the only PC which gets deleted/misrepresented just happens to be the one PC which only applies to the Council’s female residents and employees. All the other PCs can apply to both males and females.
• Nottingham Council doesn’t get its lawyers to check its strategy documents before sign off / publication.

@NeverDropYourMooncup that's along document, what page please?

My apologies, I made a mistake there - it's in Implementing Your School's Approach to Pay. Page 38. it's been a long week

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/786098/Implementing_your_school_s_approach_to_pay.pdf

The Equality Act 2010

Schools must not directly discriminate against anyone because of a relevant protected characteristic. Protected characteristics are set out in Section 4 of the Equality Act 2010 and are:

• age
• disability
• gender reassignment
• marriage and civil partnership
• pregnancy (including maternity leave)
• race
• religion or belief
• gender
• sexual orientation

That gov.uk document is incorrect as well.

Astonishing that government documents claim to list the PCs and then list them incorrectly.

Here is a link to the relevant Section of the Act.

Yikes.

No idea why the link didn’t work. I’ve reported my post.

Thanks, never. There's an option at the bottom of the page to report a problem, so I've done that

I’ve been trying to copy over a link from legislation.gov.uk but can’t get it to work.

The correct PCs in Section 4 of EA2010 are:

age
disability
gender reassignment
marriage and civil partnership
pregnancy and maternity
race
religion or belief
sex
sexual orientation

Sorry, didn’t mean to quote the previous post.

Sits nicely alongside our hospital which responded to dire reports on maternity services by committing to "pregnant people". If we fail to name women as the sex that needs the service, the service will fail to meet our needs as a sex. www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4557446-nottingham-maternity-services?reply=117508049

And me! Mine were fine.

Is paternity leave not protected? Or is it under some Employment Act?

The Paternity and Adoption Leave Regulations 2002 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2002/2788/contents/made

What are the Paternity and Adoption Leave Regulations 2002?
Current paternity leave laws were introduced by The Paternity and Adoption Leave Regulations 2002 and give eligible employees the right to take either one week or two consecutive weeks’ leave within 56 days of a child’s birth or placement for adoption. The entitlement is the same regardless of whether it is a multiple birth or adoption.

Who is eligible for paternity leave in the UK?
In order to exercise their right to take one or two weeks of statutory paternity leave, employees must satisfy the following eligibility criteria: [conts]

www.thegazette.co.uk/companies/content/103411

The Nottingham Council EDI Strategy document claimed to be listing the Protected Characteristics in the Equality Act 2010. The document then listed eight of the nine protected characteristics correctly, and misrepresented one of those protected characteristics.

The ‘protected characteristics’ are the characteristics afforded legal protection from discrimination under the Equality Act.

Maternity leave / maternity pay is an employment benefit. Paternity leave /paternity pay is an employment benefit.

‘Pregnancy and maternity’ (in other words the state of being pregnant and then of having given birth) is a protected characteristic.

The state of having impregnated a woman is not a protected characteristic under EA2010.

The state of having impregnated a woman who has given birth to your offspring is not a protected characteristic under EA2010.

Sorry, I was replying to crosstalk there but forgot to click on “quote”.

I get that they've got the protected characteristic wrong here, but is there an argument that the protected characteristic should include fathers?

Not 'the state of having impregnated a woman' but 'the state of being responsible for a child'.

If for instance a man wanted to claim that he was overlooked for promotion because he took his paternity leave or because he always leaves on time to pick up his kids?

No, because “having caring responsibilities” is not a Protected Characteristic under Equality Act 2010.