Hi Sandra,

 

In Scotland the government has just published draft Public Sector Specific Duties which (absent any code) appear to suggest that universities will have to gather data and report across all PCs.  The draft legislation states:

Duty to gather and use employment information

1.—(1) A listed authority must take steps to gather information on—

(a)     the composition of the authority’s employees (if any); and

(b)     the recruitment, development and retention of persons as employees of the authority;

with respect to, in each year, the number and relevant protected characteristics of such persons.

(2) The authority must use this information to better perform the equality duty.

(3) A report published by the listed authority in accordance with regulation 3 must include—

(a)     an annual breakdown of information gathered by it in accordance with paragraph (1) which has not been published previously in such a report; and

(b)     details of the progress that the authority has made in gathering and using that information to enable it to better perform the equality duty.

 

Therefore we are pressing ahead with plans to collect data although on a voluntary basis for religion, sexual orientation and gender reassignment.  However this raises the question of improving data collection for these areas. Hope this helps as a tactical weapon if not a legislative one in England.

 

Chris

 

Dear All

 

It has come to my attention that some Student Unions are taking a stance against  the proposed HESA data collection on sexual orientation and religion and belief, in particular sexual orientation, as it is a particularly sensitive area for transgender students.   Apparently HESA have been approached by a number of SUs to communicate their disagreement with this particular type of data collection.  As well as  introducing these two new fields to the student 2012/13 collection, HESA are also making other changes with regard to a differentiation between ‘gender’ and ‘sex’. 

 

In light of this, we are reviewing the necessity to collect such data and have discovered that the two future fields in question have actually been deemed ‘optional’ by HESA for both staff and students.

 

I am therefore writing to ask what approach other institutions are taking and if they have already started to collect the data, what sort of response you have received.

 

Many thanks

 

Sandra

 

Mrs Sandra Beaufoy

HR Adviser - Equality and Diversity

Human Resources

University House

University of Warwick

Coventry

UK

Tel: 00 44 (0)24 76 574479

Email: [log in to unmask]