Society of Local Council Clerks - equality and diversity policy

[Needathickskin]

I’d like to draw attention to a clause in a draft equality and diversity policy that was put forward by our local town council here in Hampshire. It uses a standard template provided by the Society of Local Council Clerks.

I objected to the use of the word ‘people’ in the clause relating to ‘pregnancy or maternity’. There is no mention of ‘woman’ at all.

This was rejected by town councillors on the basis that ‘Your feedback was shared with the R&P Committee at the meeting last night and as the policy was drafted by SLCC, it was agreed to leave the wording as it is.’.

I am frustrated, disappointed but not surprised at the lazy approach taken here by town councillors - it is clear that no one one wants to be seen to raise anything at all that could be regarded as controversial.

Where to next?

Contact Sex Matters for advice.
https://sex-matters.org/contact/

@fromorbit thank you; very much appreciated

Am a clerk and tempted to change the language in ours and see if the councillors vote it through. It's my first year in the job and had no influence on it last time.

Yours will probably get reviewed/readopted at the next Annual Town Council Meeting if you want to go along and speak in the public forum section.

Alert the local press. Removing the word woman from maternity policies is the type of batshit issue that they're starting to pick up on - especially when local councillors / civil servants wibble on about how it's "inclusive" to exclude the language of 50% of the population from policies that apply specifically to women.
#OperationLetThemSpeak and all that.

Just had a quick look at the National Association of Local Council's template policies on maternity and D&I and they say mother, use female pronouns etc (although there is too much talk of the "gender balance" of employees for my liking). So if the council wants to cover their arses with professionally written policies there are better ones out there.

This is a good point.

And made me reflect that it excludes 100% of the population the information is actually relevant for. Pregnancy only affects females.

I made that point to the clerk in my first email, but obviously it’s had no impact.

@CalpolOnToast interesting point about National Association of Local Councils (NALC) template policies. I don’t know enough about the hierarchy of such organisations. Why no consistency ?
//:
Established in 1947, the National Association of Local Councils (NALC) is a membership organisation and the only national body representing the interests of local (parish and town) councils. NALC works in partnership with county associations to support, promote and improve local councils.
There are 10,000 local councils in England with over 30% of the country parished and 100,000 councillors who serve in these local councils.
///:

In contrast, SLCC looks ?less rigorous? - I could be wrong. https://www.slcc.co.uk/

Its the laziness of thinking I’m concerned about; the lack of scrutiny.

@CalpolOnToast I should also add that the town council in question has won NALC’s ‘quality’ award in 2023 but I fail to see how this could be the case with this issue now in play. At least that gives me leverage now to raise it with NALC. This policy wording is not acceptable.

It gets renewed every 5 years, a council might not pass it if assessed in between

Basically SLCC are the organisation for local council employees, and NALC are for local councils as a whole. They both put out consultations on a whole heap of things and it's up to staff or councillors to respond.

Neither org has responsibility for regulating town and parish councils or their staff, all they can do is take accreditations away and it's legal to operate without.

Continue going after the council basically!

I am guessing your council is either Conservative or Liberal as it is Hampshire. Maybe contact Conservatives for women, or Liberal Voice for women

https://liberalvoiceforwomen.org/
https://www.conservativesforwomen.org/

Remind them, as they’re supposedly pursuing equality & diversity, that this fuckery makes the policy inaccessible to vulnerable groups of women to whom it applies.

Women with learning disabilities & ESOL women who rely on their child[ren] to translate are two such groups. And if they don’t need to read this particular policy, lovely. But they need to be able to read the information produced by their local council; & that means their local council must adhere to a policy of clear language. Documents involving specialist terms can have glossaries &/or explanatory notes [with translation available] if necessary - we’ve all seen it done. Deliberately obfuscatory language is dishonest (hardly what one looks for in a politician) & unhelpful. Perhaps it is just one bad copy-pasta; but given the response, I suspect it’s a linguistic Trojan Horse: changing the language little by little being the aim; & that policy being where they’ve started.

Only members of the female sex can become pregnant & give birth in the human species. (Please nobody drag that poor person with a DSD whose tiny amount of XX tissue was enough to allow them to have a child: it’s utterly grotesque to try to pretend that changes things any more than eg Adam Hills’ limb difference means humans aren’t a bipedal species). This insistence we all pretend otherwise is actively harmful, so good luck getting them to return to reality. I don’t dare check what nonsense my local Council publishes - they lie about how many new homes they’ve built; have removed all scrutiny measures; are abysmal on disability stuff; but do flags with an enthusiasm that would make an Orangeman blush. (And then go a funny colour when he realised which flags were involved. He’d probably pop his clogs seeing the tricolour dotted about the place on top 😁)

@NitroNine and @fromorbit I kind of get the impression that you're talking about district/borough councils. None of them should be erasing women but SLCC are only involved in parish/town/community councils

I would be writing again and pointing out that legislation and case law both protect the term mother.

The Court of Appeal ruled that a birth certificate must accurately record the mother I.e. a transman who gives birth has to be recorded as mother.
https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/McConnell-and-YY-judgment-Final.pdf

The 2021 (recent) Ministerial and other Maternity Allowances Act uses the word mother. This was a concession the HoL secured.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2021/5/contents/enacted

Maya Forstater’s EAT re GC views.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/60c1cce1d3bf7f4bd9814e39/Maya_Forstater_v_CGD_Europe_and_others_UKEAT0105_20_JOJ.pdf