Well done Attorney General

[AndStand]

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Is the tide beginning to turn?

Attorney General Suella Braverman hits out at diversity training mol.im/a/11078419 via dailym.ai/android

Before anyone says it's the Tories weaponising the Equality Act, I'm afraid there's some truth to the "industry" charge. Before that Act, the public sector (at least) had to consider separate pieces of legislation. I remember having a Disability Equality Scheme - all done in-house based on things like (gasp!) facts and figures, and populations. There were similar things for the other main pieces of legislation, race and sex.

Guess which one never got paid attention to? The one based on sex equality. Guess how other things were dealt with? By looking at the legislative requirements eg religion.

After the EQA, there was indeed a race for new products that could bring the new expanded list together. You ended up with utterly daft "requirements" (they weren't required in law but in the schemes being sold) being made of services that could never meet those requirements because of who used the services. For example increasing a particular demographic in your stats is impossible if you're in an area where that demographic is simply low - what are you to do? Instigate gerrymandering?

IMO women were losing out before and we've lost out in the race for these schemes and with the addition of the not-needed "inclusion" and with the loss of the needed "fairness".

Not saying I am not going to look with a keen eye at what is proposed here but there's a definite history to it all.

Times too with a fair bit about both Maya and stonewall

Suella Braverman scraps diversity lessons

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/b6bda466-1360-11ed-b5dc-213f5c972cc4?shareToken=bdde7268297602e1bfe38a7df52a16f5

The EDI industry is just that: an industry. People are being paid by the taxpayer to invent a grotesque caricature of our culture - racist, homophobic, transphobic (but not sexist) - and then come up with ways in which people must do penance to be considered humble enough not to be bullied at work. It must stop. We can’t afford it and it’s not a good idea even if we could. Private businesses can obviously do what they want with their money but the government has a responsibility to make sure people can get an appointment for a persistent cough before they spend money on this drivel.

Good news if she can actually make them do it. How many times have MPs said this or that office must do xyz - including ditch Stonewall - and they just don't?

‘How many times have MPs said this or that office must do xyz - including ditch Stonewall - and they just don't?’

Civil servants have a lot of power. It’s confusing to me.

I agree it’s an industry that businesses can’t afford anymore with utility/ rent rises etc but I think for disability in particular there still needs to be a good awareness or it could get overlooked in policy making, design etc

@sashagabadon

There needs to be a good awareness of legal responsibilities in government departments. That means the responsibility to make reasonable adjustments, and not to discriminate. That’s a matter of training in the provisions of the Equality Act and isn’t hard to put in place (and indeed is almost certainly already in place).

People are being paid by the taxpayer to invent a grotesque caricature of our culture - racist, homophobic, transphobic (but not sexist) - and then come up with ways in which people must do penance to be considered humble enough not to be bullied at work

Excellent analysis. I may steal it!

Suella B and the rest aren't saying it as MPs but as government ministers. There's a substantial difference.

I just hope that this edi crap is removed from Scotland too (I know wishful thinking)

She [Braverman] says some believe in the cause and ‘don the outfit of the inquisitor and never tire of rooting out unbelievers’ but others simply ‘wear the priestly clothes to ward off their rivals’ or ‘nod along and recite the creed because they are too scared to dissent’

this is so true, and played out by the visitors we have here too

Mrs Braverman concludes: ‘We need to worry less about what people say on Twitter, and more about ensuring passports arrive on time, GP appointments are available when needed, and the police turn up when you’ve been burgled.’

something I think we can all get behind

Mrs Braverman concludes: ‘We need to worry less about what people say on Twitter, and more about ensuring passports arrive on time, GP appointments are available when needed, and the police turn up when you’ve been burgled.’

something I think we can all get behind

Oh yes. If they can do it, it would be a vote winner. The rot goes deep though.

a new religion with a new priestly caste

Absolutely. This is the (accurate) framing that people like @Glinner have been using for years. It’s good to hear it from politicians too now.

That’s really interesting ResisterRex

The rot does go deeper but at least the scale of the problem is being recognised. Emperor’s clothes and all that etc

I like the analogy to witch trials and reference to zealots -very true. But it’s going to take a lot to reverse what has already been imbedded.

We don’t get D&I training but I did try to ask for Equality Act training for our workplace and was told it was too expensive, so does anyone have any tips on how SMEs train staff to abide by the Equality Act in a way that’s affordable?

How does she account for all the rot that not only set in but spread massively in the past 12 years of Tory rule?

Thats 12 actual earth years.

Yes, I wasn't implying that the Tories had nothing to do with it.

‘Thats 12 actual earth years.’

😂

I wonder if the answer is to have a policy that disallows social media engagement in core government departments. They can use traditional media and spokespersons to communicate policy rather than primarily talking to activists without knowing that’s what they’re doing (a phenomenon that distorts their activities).

I think I we all sleep walked into this mess. I was all ‘be kind’ until mumsnet and JKR raised the alarm.
I subscribe to Graham Lineham newsletter, and initially thought it was the rantings of a maniac and then the scales fell from my eyes, and now I see how brave he was to point out what been all told not to look at.
Now Maya and Allisons court cases have opened up free speech , it’s easy to say it was obvious from the start , but it wasn’t.
however labour, the Lib Dems and SNP have no excuse now.

I just watched Braverman talking in an interview and she seems pretty sound to me. It is (like she said) horrifying to read what government lawyers are spending their time on. ‘White fragility’ and ‘white privilege’ are concepts that can be framed more benignly but actually when you follow them all the way through, they make her, a clever, brave, and opinionated woman with a great career, into a permanent victim, and I can see why she finds that offensive and wasteful.

I don’t think this is a brilliant victory for women, to me it feels like spin after years of the Tories ignoring women’s concerns around gender identity politics being adopted by areas of the public sector (since 2010 onwards when the Tories have actually been in government although you really wouldn’t think it to hear them now). So what’s the actual substance here of what Suella Braverman is saying, now that so many MPs in the Johnson government are supposedly alert to these issues?

I notice that neither Braverman nor Truss (also mentioned that in the article for wanting to scrap diversity training for some civil servants) have committed publicly to ensuring that civil servants are actively trained in the Equality Act and will be required to demonstrate its use in their work? They could even go wild and commit as Ministers or Prime Ministers to making sure the existing equality act is at the heart of everything they do and commit to reviewing it in Parliament to address its well-documented flaws. (although the overall protective principle of the Act should not be changed obviously)

They could commit to updating the 2010 Equality Act by requiring equality impact assessments to be made as part of all public sector decision-making above a certain level. They are not mandatory and seem to increasingly invisible. That would be progress….. but I’m going to bet confidently that that is not going to happen in the next million years.

In the olden days after 2010 we used to see government consultations etc with Equality Impact assessments attached. That just doesn’t happen now. The Public Sector Equality Duty still stands so I would feel more comfortable with what the Tories are doing now to distance themselves from the gender identity shitshow (that has taken root entirely on their government watch), if I felt that they were actively enforcing the rules that we already have, eg to encourage greater knowledge of and adherence to the Equality Act. But they have not been, and they are not doing so now.

Rather than just money saving on crappy training, which is all very well, but which should never have been put in in the first place. All these changes are just a question of ministers actually making them priorities- and the Equality Act still does not seem to be one for them.

For those interested in disability issues there has been a good summary written of the Equality Act issues and how government have not listened fully to disability campaigners’ concerns about the Equality Act not serving them adequately since 2010 etc, and which covid has then exacerbated:

lordslibrary.parliament.uk/the-equality-act-2010-impact-on-disabled-people/#:~:text=The%20government%2C%20then%20led%20by,%5B%E2%80%A6%5D

And some useful general info here about equality impact assessments and PSED commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn06591/

They could commit to updating the 2010 Equality Act by requiring equality impact assessments to be made as part of all public sector decision-making above a certain level. They are not mandatory and seem to increasingly invisible. That would be progress….. but I’m going to bet confidently that that is not going to happen in the next million years.

Yes, I would also like to see this. And proper training, hospitals particularly seem to think when a policy is suggested which is for the benefit of a particular protected group you only have to examine the impact on the group the policy is for and not all other 8 protected characteristics discretely.

So over the last few years people got FOIs of impact assessments for trans policies and they had literally gone down the list looking at the impact on BAME trans people, elderly trans people etc but had not considered how it would affect for eg Muslim women or people with dementia who were not trans.

‘So over the last few years people got FOIs of impact assessments for trans policies and they had literally gone down the list looking at the impact on BAME trans people, elderly trans people etc but had not considered how it would affect for eg Muslim women or people with dementia who were not trans.’

Do we think this is because of a lack of training? I would have thought they know perfectly well how their policies affect different groups, and that they have a duty to consider this. I don’t think they care.