Badenoch wants to bin the Public Sector Equality Duty

[Slothtoes]

Badenoch wants to bin the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) because she wants to ‘bring back trust in public institutions’. She will replace it with ‘common sense’.
That’s always worked out so well for women...

She says everyone should be treated equally. Just talking now on Radio 4 Today programme.
Badenoch is trying to chuck the baby out with the bathwater in a very dim-witted dangerous way.

The problem with the public sector equality duty is it slows everything down so much. Every single policy decision needs an equality impact assessment, even when it has nothing to do with equality. It makes government slow and expensive. And then we wonder why taxes are high but nothing ever happens.

Baby out with the bathwater was the phrase that sprung to me too. On with the culture war…

She is just going to repeat every Reform policy parrot fashion.

I think it’s worth examining. There have been some batshit crazy decisions and actions justified by the PSED so it’s not working as well as it could.

This is absolutely untrue. Decisions get made all the time without impact assessments!

It’s certainly worth asking the question whether PSED has actually worked well for women, and what have been its unintended consequences and secondary effects.

I agree that if public bodies are going beyond the law because of their ignorance of the law, naivety to being lobbied or whatever (like say with ‘Stonelaw’ decision-making not backed up by the law), then that’s definitely something to look at.
But that’s because a public body might be applying the Equality Act incorrectly. Which definitely has happened. Public bodies are not infallible. But that doesn’t mean that the Equality Act itself is wrong. She’s saying that public bodies being required to use the Equality Act is wrong because ‘everyone should be treated the same’. She calls that ‘common sense’.

But saying we just don’t need our public bodies to legally have to consider equality any more (…!) because that consideration can be better done by these bodies simply applying ‘common sense’ (WTF does that even mean? How do we define it, or its lack? How can it hold up in court?) is very dangerous for everyone.

She’s saying whatever the organisational culture and therefore the decision making of the public body is, then that would effectively be the law now.

Not having a PSED would take away the legal ability of women, disabled people, ethnic groups, LGB people and anyone else affected by public bodies’ decisions to appeal those decisions. Very scary.

Imagine if Badenoch’s vision of no PSED had been the legal situation through the Stonelaw years under that the rotation of Tory PMs we’ve had over the last decades. We’d still be in the Stonelaw years now.

The interviewer was confused in a way even I could see, exaggerating the effect that removing the PSED would have. Is there a reputable summary somewhere of exactly what removing the PSED would do? I don't recall it playing a major role in any case I've followed.

It’s an interesting idea legally. The PSED as something the government actually complies with has always been suspect. But it’s definitely a point that all governments dislike because of ease of getting judicially reviewed.

I imagine that this might be quite popular across the political spectrum - who would defend it?

We’d still be in the Stonelaw years now

What makes you think that? The PSED hasn't played any meaningful role as far as I'm aware in rolling this back.

Sorry; wrong thread!

The problem with "common sense" is that there is no such thing. It is not defined. Every person will have a different opinion on what is "common sense".

Dangerous sexist and homophobic/lesbophobic situations like putting rapists in women’s prisons, the NHS not providing single sex wards etc that public bodies brought in, were due to their mistaken idea that it was their duty to treat everyone equally, and not by actually looking at the Equality Act properly (as confirmed by FWS case)

If we’re asking the question, we should also be asking for an independent assessment and THEN having a policy position based off it.

This is forming a policy position for a peanut gallery for whom “equality” and “feminism” and “women’s rights” don’t need thinking about. And as an earlier poster has pointed out, we all know how well things go for women when we have no rights in law or policy, because we’ve just been through a phase of having to fight of a threat to them. Wiping them out altogether is ridiculous!

You think this is why taxes are set as they are??

The biggest problem in politics over the last 25 years is that politicians have worked out that the easiest way to get votes is to point out problems rather than think of solutions.

This is another example, following in the footsteps of Brexit, Iraq, Afghanistan, constantly replacing Prime Ministers etc etc

Yep, the current set up is imperfect and sometimes problematic. Yep, it's easy to see examples of problems. But put them right whilst maintaining the very many good things. Don't just have a tantrum and get rid of everything on the vague assumption that something better will magically emerge, because it won't without the hard work and hard thinking that you can't be arsed doing.

It’s not about “common sense”. It’s about allowing inequality when it’s convenient.

Thank you - interesting thoughts.

I’ve also been intrigued at the ‘missing’ equality impact assessments where they were clearly required but not done, especially in the NHS and local government, while TQ+ First (unlawful) policies were shoehorned in.

Or would such EIAs simply have anyway said, ‘Impact on women: nothing they can’t reframe with some lovely reflective practice’?

There have been considerable problems caused by the way in which the PSED has been applied in the public sector. In the NHS it has resulted in a hierarchical approach to the protected characteristics, which is one reason why the sex based rights of women are being over ridden by so called transgender rights. EqIA are bureaucratic, but they are almost never done properly, and I have read dozens!

Badenoch is unlikely to be PM any time soon though.

I absolutely agree there have been omissions under PSEDs, like impact assessments not done when they should have been, or not including eg women when they should have done, and that insertions into public bodies’ policy have been made (presumably under an incorrect idea of PSED) that aren’t in fact in keeping with the Equality Act. Let’s deal with this through training at public bodies that’s legally accurate and by regulation by EHRC as a backstop.

None of that convinced me that PSED is legally unnecessary or is a bad idea to keep on though. Or that public bodies relying on ‘common sense’ is better than having a PSED.

Governments and public bodies hate things like judicial review- that’s why we need the option of JR, but surely it’s in all our interests to at least be try to preempt those poor decisions being made in the first place. Which means having a PSED.

Rather than not have it, replacing it with Kemi Badenoch's Common Sense’ and then placing the onus on the individual to have to try to bring a legal case after the harm has been done.

I agree on your point regarding the malleability of PSED. In practice this happens and a policy will be compliant.

It’s important to realise it’s not an absolute duty. I think in absolute terms, the availability of JR means that an individual is not disempowered from taking action against the government. If it were removed, it would be easy to do.

Hear hear.

The problem is that some of the EQIAs I've looked at would have been improved by a toddler drawing upon them in crayon, so piss poor were they.

There's no point having them if someone just says 'yes, I want men to be able to wander in and watch women getting undressed whenever they want and so I'm going to just say this will have no impact on the women, in fact will be beneficial to them because I'm going to say those men are women and they like it so, job done'. Then it's just a waste of time.

I think this, as so much, comes back to what is the consequence of not doing jobs properly. When there is no consequence, and activists can just make up impact assessments to support their position even if obviously batshit then there is no point to wasting staff time doing it in the first place.

People need to lose their jobs in the public sector when they don't do their jobs properly. The people who bullied the Darlington nurses instead of upholding their legal rights to a single sex changing room need to lose their jobs. At the moment, you can do almost anything - even if it's illegal - and stay in post, seemingly. There is no consequence for failure or even of breaking the law, so the requirements and regulations are pointless.

We do need also to get back to evidence based policy making (as well as being based on British values - like women having equal human rights). In the past I've been impressed how Kemi has taken the time to understand an issue and look at the evidence before formulating policy so I'm disappointed if that's not the case here.

Dangerous sexist and homophobic/lesbophobic situations like putting rapists in women’s prisons, the NHS not providing single sex wards etc that public bodies brought in, were due to their mistaken idea that it was their duty to treat everyone equally, and not by actually looking at the Equality Act properly (as confirmed by FWS case)

And yet did ANY Public Sector Equality Assessment ever say anything other than 'women - not affected' when they put rapists in women's prisons?

You've just proven that it is fucking pointless.

All this shit happened WITH the PSED so...

The Welsh Government were asked to provide one a few years ago and pretended a dog had eaten it/it got lost in the post/it fell down the back of the sofa and never provided it to my knowledge.