21 October 2022
Your request
Dear Lambeth Borough Council,
Would you please let me know what action has been taken as a result of the request I emailed to the Council's Cabinet member for Equality on 27 July and also let me have all of the information requested.
You will wish to note the Council's previous failure to provide information to me.
For ease of reference, here is my email:
I am writing to you as the Cabinet member with responsibility for the Equality brief.
Last year I wrote to your predecessor to express my concern as a gay man that Lambeth was a member of the Stonewall Diversity Champions Scheme (SDCS). Various pronouncements by Stonewall and its CEO have made it clear that it is no longer an organisation which represents same-sex-attracted people (lesbians and gay men), indeed - despite sexuality being a protected characteristic under the Equality Act - it has suggested that having a "dating pool" based on sex could be considered as "prejudiced". You will appreciate why I am offended by that, and why I am offended that Lambeth Council sees fit to support this organisation.
I asked your predecessor to review whether she (pronouns not checked) considered whether there was any legal or reputational risk to the council in belonging to SDCS. She said that she had been advised that there wasn't.
Regrettably, attempts to obtain via officers information about which areas of the council's business were consulted/considered before your predecessor replied have proved fruitless. You will appreciate that this is not in accordance with the FoI Act.
I am forced to raise the issue of reputational risk again as yesterday Stonewall tweeted about 2-year olds being aware of their trans identity, but "many nurseries and schools teach a binary understanding of pre-assigned gender".
I would be grateful if you would:
- Let me know whether Lambeth educational establishments are teaching in a way which would meet this concern of Stonewall;
- review whether you think it is appropriate for Lambeth to continue funding Stonewall;
- let me know which areas of the Council's business you have considered before replying to me.
I am copying to my councillors so that they are aware of my concerns.
Our response
Thank you for your Freedom of Information request and for your patience while we discussed the content of it with officers in the Education department.
On each of your points in turn:
- we can confirm that the local authority does not determine what schools teach about sexuality or gender. This is a matter for schools themselves, within the confines of the curriculum.
- the council does not “fund” Stonewall – we are members only of the Workplace Equality Index, in which we have participated twice. As you will understand, the council keeps such initiatives and programmes under constant review – especially at a time of severe financial constraint. We will do so in this case also
- prior to responding to you, officers liaised with colleagues in the Education and Schools team, with Human Resources officers, with the Customer Complaints team and with the Strategy and Communications directorate.
I hope that clarifies our position.