Scottish Parliament on recording sex of MPs

[PearlClutch]

I've name changed.

I complained about the removal of info on MSPs sex on the website. Got a response:

'The designation male / female published shortly after the election on the Parliament’s website was published in error. Therefore, as soon as we became aware of this, officials took immediate steps to remove it. The information published was gathered via a legacy IT system using publicly available data which was then automatically pulled through to our website.

That information was not sourced from, or verified by, current Members and was not collected in line with our new practice as set out in our Gender Sensitive Audit (GSA) report of March 2023. This is being remedied as a matter of urgency, and we are sorry for the confusion and upset this has caused for many people.

Importantly, the GSA report had cross-party endorsement, and work has been progressing since then on implementing its recommendations. Some of those recommendations deal with the collection and publication of diversity data. Specifically, the recommendations said:

Recommendation 9

SPICe to update and extend existing MSP Candidate Diversity data, analysis and information:

• Issue diversity data monitoring form to all MSPs and repeat this at the start of each session.
• Explore the presentation of publicly accessible, longitudinal and intersectional diversity data on MSPs, ensuring the gathering, collation and any publication of such information and complies with General Data Protection Regulations [GDPR] protecting the privacy of Members’ personal data.

Recommendation 10

SPICe to explore the creation and presentation of new MSP/Candidate diversity data (ensuring it complies with General Data Protection Regulations protecting the privacy of Members’ personal data)

• To include information from the fielding of a ‘parents and carers’ in Parliament survey (see Annex B as an example of such a survey).
• To include information identified in any new disability audit (see recommendation that the Gender Sensitive Parliament Advisory Group commission a disability audit of the Parliament).

The approach set out above is the one the Parliament is taking to the collection and publication of diversity data this session. As you can see, we are fully committed to publishing diversity information in line with legal requirements and we recognise the interest the public and others have in this data for varied reasons including equality monitoring, representation of women and proper transparency.

The diversity monitoring form mentioned in the GSA report will shortly be issued to Members directly and the information will be gathered and analysed in line with our legal obligations by Friday 5 June.

As per the commitment in the GSA report, we will also identify what diversity information, including women’s representation, shall be published in a publicly accessible way, taking into account all legal requirements including last year’s Supreme Court ruling, the Equality Act 2010 and GDPR requirements.

I hope that this response will be sufficient to resolve your complaint by reassuring you that the Parliament is committed to diversity monitoring and transparency around representation at Holyrood. '

I'm having a look at the interminably long 'Gender Sensitive Audit' linked in the report.

Not found any detail on whether their waffle about intersectionality means that they include males in the definition of women, as yet. But there's 135 pp, so time yet. There is this:

'It should also be said that the dominant focus in this report has been on the under-representation of women, there is a recognition of the vastly different experiences different groups of women may have, so any approach in this regard should be intersectional. Further to this, there should be attention on making such approaches sensitive to those who are non-binary as valuable members of Scottish society to ensure genuine representation of the country’s diverse population.'

That’s a lot of waffle to try not to notice that all and any women are under-represented by their government in Scotland.

Guilt-tripping crap to try to discourage us from organizing as a sex.

I guess this is the key para:

'...we will also identify what diversity information, including women’s representation, shall be published in a publicly accessible way, taking into account all legal requirements including last year’s Supreme Court ruling, the Equality Act 2010 and GDPR requirements'

So, no commitment to publish the sex of MSPs.

Bearing in mind ForWomen Scotland ruling was specifically relating to The Gender Representation on Public Boards (Scotland) Act 2018, it should be very straightforward that MSPs data is published according to biological sex.

Dithering and incompetence disguised by waffle. It's basically the ScotParl in a nutshell, unfortunately.

The art of taking ages to say absolutely nothing, the government/public sector have it down to an award winning level.

Gender Sensitive Parliament Advisory Group....?
longitudinal and intersectional diversity .....?

Meaningless claptrap. 🤯

I remember reading once that the cockney rhyming slag of old London Town was developed in order to prevent the coppers from knowing what the cockney's were getting up to. This is the same, it's like government deliberately goes out of it's way to make sure the electorate don't know what they're up to, or spot that they are all completely clueless.