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.

Exactly. It is very malleable, PSED. Assuming it’s a loss of protection is wrong.

I like a lot of what Badenoch says, but when she comes out with something stupid, it's really fucking stupid.

Justin Webb probably not alone in not understanding protected characteristics by talking about white working class boys needing help. Badenoch could have made more of the fact that they are not covered by the PCs of the Equality act.

I agree it would be ideal if training was accurate and not driven by activists and if there was any regulation, but I suspect the latter is going to be hampered by the fact the economic situation is just so crap and the country has no money and there are so many activists in positions of power in the NHS and elsewhere, they're not going to give up easily. Having real accountability for not doing your job properly seems easier.

Although maybe they could scrap the DEI jobs within the public sector and use that money to fund proper regulation instead.

And yes, whilst it's great there are legal routes, most people don't have the time or money to take them. Especially working class women.

I just watched the WRN interview of the Darlington nurses - they specifically commented on how the foreign born nurses felt they couldn't pursue legal action as were scared of having their NHS sponsored visas cancelled. This point was raised on here during the NHS audit - how many trusts were promoting their moral superiority policy of bringing in foreign HCPs, putting them up in accommodation and sponsoring their visas (and thereby denying them full freedom as their accommodation and jobs are contingent upon them staying siilent about abuses like men in women's spaces).

Edited to add: the bullying the Darlington nurses has received from management is quite jaw dropping. There is no way I'd trust those managers not to find a spurious reason to fire someone or try and revoke their visa. Or they could just let the visa lapse, presumably, if ideological compliance is not fervent enough.

The principles underlying PSED are great. Based on the NHS audit we did the practice is woeful. We looked at around 100 EqIAs and none of them were done properly (or achieved what they should have). Even the very small number that identified that allowing men into women’s spaces may cause a detriment to women and people with some beliefs/religions, these detriments were handwaved away rather than mitigated.

We may be beyond “training” to stop EqIAs being a tick box exercise to rubber stamp whatever policy has already been decided.

However, we need the principles to become practice more than ever IMO.

Comonsense won’t cut it.

There are lots and lots of groups who don't have protection but arguably, morally, should have and lots of groups who DO have protection but they might as well not have given all the (lack of) effort made to ensure they're not discriminated against. Implementation of the EA2010 seems insanely discriminatory and biased, in general.

And some PCs require discrimination to not cause harm e.g. age - the same treatment for a child and and adult would be arguable discriminatory to the child. Obviously there are other laws that cover this, but for some reason the EA2010 seems to take precedence in public discourse. Which it shouldn't e.g. safeguarding law for children should take precedence over EA2010 at the very least. It's a bit ridiculous the argument is always around the EA2010 and not the workplace regs around changing rooms, too. It seems to me that there are lots of lawyers who understand the EA2010 but not how it interacts with other laws, presumably as the former is more profitable.

I'm afraid my opinion of lawyers as generally intelligent has taken a bit of a nosedive after Judge Kemp's made up law and other events.

Obviously there are some seriously impressive barristers and lawyers, NC, BC, AR etc but it's now evidence-based on an individual level for me - no more 'oh they must know what they're doing because they're a Judge / lawyer'.

Can you explain why you think it is really fucking stupid.

What actual benefits have come from doing this to say, women or people with disabilities?

I think she sometimes makes knee-jerk responses to issues with a view to sounding more glibly no-nonsense/anti-woke than Reform. In this case there seems to be more nuance and background to consider.

She can articulate some issues really well, so I find her inconsistent. It would be interesting to have seen her as leader at another point in history. Reform are setting all agendas at the moment.

I think shes tapping into a feeling with the electorate.

We pay a lot of taxes, but the quality of services is poor. And the same providers who aren't achieving congratulate themselves on their diversity initiatives.

It's not unreasonable for the public to assume, rightly or wrongly, that they are employing diversity hires instead of competent workers, or are focused on DEI instead of doing their job.

This isn't the same as protecting the workforce, I think its disingenuous to say otherwise.

I don't have Badenoch confidence that we can rely on their 'common sense' though.

That has all happened - and is still happening - despite the so called Equality Act.

Surely the public sector is exactly as obliged as everyone else (whether individuals or institutions) to obey the law. The PSED is an expression of that, and EIAs are a tool for doing it.

EIAs are done badly because some PCs are ignored. They should sack HR/DEI 'specialists' and employ litigation-averse lawyers instead.

The assumption its removal would be a problem for public authorities is wrong. They would probably be content.

Badenoch has not really thought this through entirely, because it is not a panacea for issues identified by the right due to equality legislation or DEI. The reality is that any government who wanted to make preferential legislation can already, and PSED is a nominal hurdle they have to meet (and one that they are largely able to meet because they have the information).

What happens if you remove PSED? Any government, of any complexion has a slightly freer hand to legislate, but now it does not need to meet this duty. It still has to consider the Equality Act. And so the duty is really there to provide a defence against litigation, to show consideration and compliance, and little else. A government that was really minded to deliver its policy would just have something less to do. And it wanted to defend against judicial review, it could address in other ways,

A red herring.

Well what nuance and background should be considered, bearing in mind many Equality Assessments just say - 'no problem' and carry on doing what they want?

The public sector has ground to a halt because it's been buried under so many policies and procedures. A massive amount of that burden needs to be lifted so the public sector can deliver the service to the public that it's supposed to.
I'm glad Kemi is starting a conversation about it, we can't have an effective and streamline delivery of services until the public sector is striped of its unnecessary burden.