Civil Service staff networks to only meet outside working hours and have all events signed off by senior managers

[IwantToRetire]

New rules have been issued to all Civil Service staff networks to ensure their activities remain within the Civil Service Code.

Read in full at https://www.gov.uk/government/news/civil-service-staff-networks-to-only-meet-outside-working-hours-and-have-all-events-signed-off-by-senior-managers

There should be no "search and replace" when it comes to accurate language about maternity or any other issue relating to the female sex. On the other hand, "search and add", in the sense of saying "women and transmen/NB" where female health and maternity services are concerned, would be an excellent thing. The same should apply to male-specific health issues, with information about prostate cancer specifying both men and transwomen, but that somehow doesn't tend to happen.

Exactly. I didn't mention a "leaflet. It's the wholesale removal of the language of women in maternity care, along with the illegal wedging of men into women's single sex hospital wards, changing rooms (see Fife tribunal for the grim details).

Maternity care has been a disgrace for so many years (as those of us who have experienced the poor care can attest to). Claiming that this hasn't happened simply makes posters look foolish.

It is still two sides of the same coin.

Yes, trans activists have thoroughly fucked up many things for women.

Or the wild overreaction to such a small group in this case

Such a small group which nonetheless has such a large sense of its own self-importance that it has felt entitled to demand that society rearranges itself for its benefit, largely at the expense of women. Whatever their inner feelings or sense of identity, trans-identified men remain male and thus have no right of admittance to women's single-sex spaces, services and sports.

An event during a lunch break would still be permitted afaik

No, this is pulled out on women time and time again and it's wholly disingenous.
'You're over reacting, you're messing things up for other people' - it means don't look, don't be mean, sit down, shut up, hand over your rights, be a good girl.

If you're not into women's equality and rights, say so and explain why you think men's needs and political control of mens rights movements in government tax paid jobs is so very important, I'm all ears.

I'm sure those mothers will manage just as will mothers who are teachers and nurses and supermarket workers who don't expect to attend personal interest groups within their paid working day.

a minority of networks experience this yet all are punished. That's an overreaction. And an overreaction that deliberately makes it harder for parents and disabled people to meet. Victory.

It is very much not an over-reaction to say specialist interest lobby groups should not exist within the civil service. We are meant to be a democracy where power lies with parliament.

Women, suffer political capture and the destruction of your rights quietly please, because resisting it might inconvenience others?

No thank you. You're trying to use that vague guilting idea using female socialisation to shame women for wanting equality and for government employees to follow the law and requirements of their post to be unbiased. With the idea that women should enable it quietly. It's a bit of an odd approach really. There are many things that cannot happen in society now because a small group of people were twats who took the piss and it had to be stopped.

And I would call it a national and massive under reaction that caused this mess in the first place. Parents not employed by the civil service seem to manage fine with attending personal interest groups in their own time, I think they will get by.

You can call it punishing. The rest of society understands it's about implementing the requirement for the CS to be politically neutral. It's setting boundaries. Prioritising the workplace rather than the political playground.

No group should be diverting work time to getting their own personal needs met. Making reasonable adjustments is a legitimate workplace expectation. Using the workplace to showcase your own political demands - particularly when they involve removing the rights of other groups - is unacceptable.

For 24 years, from the early 70s to the later 90s, I was a public servant, not in the civil service, but in local government. Since reading this thread I've been trying to imagine the reaction I'd have got from management if I'd suggested we could use work time now and then to discuss matters of personal relevance, but unrelated to the job we were employed to do. It's no good. I simply can't. How the world has changed, and not necessarily for the better.

’Reasonable adjustment’ under the equality act only applies to the protected characteristic of disability.

It has a specific meaning and duty in the Equality Act when it's used regarding provision for disability, but it also has a reasonable, practical meaning as a phrase in many contexts, and there are many areas in which it's a very good idea.

There is being a good employer who considers the needs of all employees and does not discriminate. But it is not true that Making reasonable adjustments is a legitimate workplace expectation.. I think people have heard the phrase from the Equality Act and assume it applies more broadly to whatever they want.

As the mother of a disabled child I’ve managed to keep my personal life separate from my working life, I’m not sure why the civil service should be any different.

My DIL is ex civil service so I am probably more aware than most of how it operates. Most of us go to work and then we go home, please explain why the civil service is different from that.

You are right that most people manage to keep work and home separate. The civil service is different from other jobs precisely because you could influence public services in your favour. Doing so is effectively embezzlement - enriching yourself through granting yourself access to money, resources or services you would not otherwise be entitled to. Men granting themselves access to women’s spaces being an obvious one. It is for this reason civil servants must be held to a high standard of impartiality - which they have not been,

Apologies, I think we’re at cross purposes. I absolutely believe that the civil service should be held to a higher standard of impartiality, what I wasn’t understanding was the previous poster’s argument that simply because they’re the civil service, they need these activists groups, which makes no sense to me, as I would think that in order to be impartial they definitely shouldn’t have them.

I sort of agree that the over reach of TRAs has effed it up for others.

In fact allowing shared interest groups, networks, to meet if work time was a recognition that many can not make out of work meetings. And this leads to discrimination. ie more likely to be men who have the time through lack of caring committments to meet after work. Not forgetting those who have to travel long distances.

So whenever the meeting is, if the link is having the same employer then it should be a positive way to find out if eg as a woman certain aspects of the work structure or office culture are having a nagative impact on their work. That is totally different to using an office network to become a lobby group for a political campaign ie going beyond providing for people with different needs, to insisting that their needs are imposed on others, do their detriment.

Although I suspect this is in fact about quite an elite work place.

I very much doubt that those working in retail, or physical work, have these networks.

Not forgetting of course that the Civil Services is part of how politics works, or is put into practice, in the UK. So maybe there are other senistivities to consider I suppose.

I’m pro SEEN, but disappointed to see the feminism board celebrating a move that will put paid to any real gains achieved by Women’s Networks. The reality is many women simply aren’t able to attend events outside of working hours. Same goes for eg Disabled Staff Network, Carers Network, etc.

This feminist board is not celebrating.

It is discussing.

I deliberately didn't comment in the OP, but my first reaction was baby, bathwater.

It isn't putting paid to networks, but (which I query) is having to have a manager OK the agenda.

Its easy to see how this could become a mechanism that means anything slightly challenging to the status quo will not be allowed.

It is correct that it is recognised it is wrong to have lobby groups within the civil service and they absolutely do need to be removed. The problem is many of those lobbyists have trained staff and embedded their ideas into management and now SEEN are on the scene the networks are being removed without the counterbalancing argument being presented.

Attending events outside of working hours just means putting the time down to “break” instead of logging it as work on the system. Unless my bit of the CS is unusual most of these events are Teams meetings now.

If the event isn’t really significantly work related I don’t see how the CS can justify using tax payers money for essentially personal support groups.

Do the people running the IT infrastructure of the department of health and social care determine the services we receive? No. Or maybe those who study various nasty things at UKHSA? Again, no.

Only the SCS have some influence and even then they can't go against government directives, which is why we left the EU even though most CS were remain.