Tempest v Rural Payments Agency Tribunal Thread 4

[myladydisdainisyetliving]

Previous thread: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5549122-tempest-v-rural-payments-agency-tribunal-thread-3

TT substack: https://tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/tempest-vs-defra-and-rural-payments

Tempest (a TW) is claiming discrimination, harassment and/or victimisation on grounds of gender reassignment. Central to the claim is the existence of the Sex Equality and Equity Network in the Civil Service (SEEN). SEEN has been granted right to intervene. Parts of the original claim against the co-chair of SEEN (Elspeth Duemmer-Wrigley) and another party (Andreas Mueller) were struck out or narrowed. Another claimant, PQ, is no longer part of the case.

I will also note that Elspeth still has a garden in need of seeds and water to support the ability of SEEN to be an intervenor in this case. The claim originated because she said "only women menstruate" and a search with her name and those terms at the usual gardening website should point you to her plot.

This is a screenshot of the results of the Gender Critical Survey Results of a:gender.

We surveyed our members to find out their views on three questions regarding the expression of ‘gender-critical’ beliefs in the workplace, and you can see the results here. We asked them if the expression of these views would cause them to experience harassment, defined by s.26 of the Equality Act 2010 as behaviour that would create an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment. The results reflect the views of 167 members, which might sound small, but if you wanted to conduct a survey of the general public that reached 167 trans people, you would have to survey 33,400 people!

You can download it here: https://www.agender.org.uk/resources/ because the image text is very blurry.

I don't have any idea what you are all talking about but it looks interesting!

The witnesses in the tribunal so far have no clue what they are talking about either so I wouldn't worry!

If a colleague were to express their belief that "biological sex matters for both women and men in our everyday lives, including for our rights and needs in the workplace", would this create an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for you?

75% Yes
17% I'm not sure
5% No
3% a combination of the three options.

Maybe it's just me, but doesn't this survey rather undermine their case? Are they not aware of things like maternity leave?

Nice, ED works for HM Land Registry, not DEFRA.

Thanks for the correction, but aren't job cuts planned across the civil service?

Help me out here.
From ED today….
“ I have seen the working lives of so many lovely transgender, non-binary and intersex people overturned by the way some departments encourage and legitimise the manifestation of pretty much any gender-critical views’.

Let’s assume out of 532,000 Civil Servants there are 2660 identified as trans/nb which reflects the national statistic of trans making up 0.5% of the population.

I am retired now but at no time during a career spanning over 40 years did my personal life or sex life come into the office with me. Political opinions always neutral. My career started early 1980s. Political opinions were really divided at that time. But we came to work. We were productive and respectful- yes we were a mixed bag of personalities- and we embraced gay/lesbians who had just begun to win the well deserved equality. Poor language here but the gay men and lesbians I worked with at that time were often the most hard working people with unbelievable grit, resilience and integrity.

This just feels like everyone has to agree with the odd bods. Sorry if that is a childish phrase. It appears that none of these people could work in private/corporate industries. All that drives that for the most part is productivity and profit.

This is all becoming more ludicrous.

We need civil servants to do their job not bring their whole self to work.

Given Cleo is a Grade 7 in the revenue solicitors office they are presumably a qualified lawyer in charge of a team of other lawyers giving legal advice across the revenue. Not sure what ED's background is but Cleo might well have gone to the meeting with the intention of setting a tribunal up.

I meant this exchange from the first aftenoon session:

NC: your WS paras 41-47 - refresh your memory pls
[ED reads]
NC: you say handling of C grievance partic telling, that DEFRA handled wrong, shd not have SEEN network, you don't see why they would.
NC: All this, your opinion of C claim?
ED: Saying what I believe to be the case.

NC: Your WS is not an expert report
ED: No
NC: The C has always been represented by experienced solicitors?
ED: Don't know
NC: You engaged with C solicitors to produce statement

J: Is there a rogue "not" here? ED is surely saying she think's it unlikely?
AL: Both NC and I understood not unlikely.

If the judge does not understand what ED is arguing in para 45 of her WS, I am worried about the outcome of this tribunal

Someone mention up thread, that she was put back into her normal role with a 10% uplift to cover her role in the secret, nobody knows about it, GC hit squad.

Has anyone else listened to the You Must Be Some Kind of Therapist podcast with Tanya de Grunwald? It's the one called The Corporate Vibe Shift
I know it's quite long and we are slogging through a tribunal, and it's abput the private sector but I found it really interesting and think it relates to/overlaps with the stuff coming up here.

Available on youtube and other podcast platforms.

I am going to be really cynical here. Workplace redundancy is hard.

If we all end up with protected characteristics how will any employer navigate redundancy.

Smacks of the Fife case; wasn’t upset Dr. U just really after an apology, access but totally misguided . Dr. U mismanaged then ending up in a tribunal . ST wants to just do their job in their words. Effective HR should have sorted it. Puppets and puppet-masters spring to mind. Nice work PM’s if you can get it or lots of time away from their actual jobs by exploiting the vulnerable (whether you agree with their premise or not). Still the most bizarre case I’ve followed so far.

I understood that she was supposed to work 10% on AG and 90% on her CS role. Not that she got paid extra.

Well, we shall agree to differ I supposed.

I think the job of the court is to pay attention to the evidence being put before them and the context of that evidence is important. Context includes credibility of the witness and as much as the court is allowed to consider whether witnesses are credible or not the advocating counsel is allowed to bring issues which highlight a lack of credibility into clear view including their willingness to waste tax-payers' money.

I would also be a bit pedantic and say ‘unfair to the claimant’ is misleading shorthand for hostile working environment etc because it’s very much not about fairness of the Rs or not. The ST and ED’s own conduct and demands are part of what is being assessed within the tribunal, not just the Rs'. It isn't a free-floating fairness enquiry; it's a statutory reasonableness test, and reasonableness has to be tested against something.

Is anyone else getting:

https://tenor.com/en-GB/view/the-young-ones-80s-rik-mayall-rick-pratt-fascist-gif-8133252511254401354

Vibes from ED?

The laugh is she has nothing to do with DEFRA. She’s a mediocre lifer at the land registry….

She also said in her witness statement that the EDI role had been dropped and she returned to usual role with 10% allocation for that work.

Good point. ED thinks it likely. J seems to think that a mistake...?

Yeah someone did, but it's well worth repeating. I'd started listening to it, and it's very good.

Thanks for the reminder, I shall put it on while doing my jobs! 😊

I’ve been told by 2 manager in separate private firms, off the record of course, that they would not employ anyone trans for fear that they’d end up in a tribunal.

So Cleo sounds a bit more likely to be the brains behind this case?
Is Cleo listed as a witness? I think I noticed the name only today in ED's examination by NC.

Gurny Emma said in her WS oh Elspeth was so intimidating because she knew the LAW.

Except her co-chair was a lawyer leading teams of lawyers. 🤐

Oh ok then.

@ProfLargofesse Yes we'll have to agree to disagree - like adults. Whether the respondent was fair includes whether the claimant was batshit in the first place.

Any sane person would have decided by now that the claimant is acting like a toddler and would be a bit fed up that they have to spend a lot more listening to people essentially saying the same things over and over about that. A stupid idiot agreed their grievance when they shouldnt have done and this is what it's led to. As usual I'd like to see several of these people sacked but there seems precious little chance of that happening. At least ED has to do a proper job part of the time now.

The only interesting thing left is going to be how far the respondent's witnesses expose what idiots they were to go along with this.

Will the Tribunal be sane though?

I hope so. We won’t know the difference.

I have some names for the list.