A second high-profile public body has ditched a rights group’s scheme to encourage “diversity days” after concerns were raised that it gave unlawful advice on transgender rights.
Acas, the employment dispute service, confirmed to
The Times that it had withdrawn “for cost reasons” from the diversity champions scheme run by Stonewall. Days earlier the
Equality and Human Rights Commission said it was doing the same.
Stonewall promotes the scheme as “the leading employers’ programme for ensuring all LGBT staff are accepted without exception in the workplace”, and uses it to vet members’ policies to bring them in line with its own.
However, it has faced increased scrutiny and criticism. Last week another “diversity champion”, Essex University, apologised for dropping two speakers after they were accused of transphobia.
The university published an independent report, which concluded that Stonewall had provided officials with misleading and potentially illegal advice. The report expressed concern that Stonewall had misrepresented the provisions of the Equality Act 2010 to suggest that the legislation included “gender identity”. Academics have claimed that the alleged misrepresentation has resulted in speakers being prevented from debating trans rights.
The Essex report said that if “the university considers it appropriate to continue its relationship with Stonewall, it should devise a strategy for countering the drawbacks and potential illegalities”. Stonewall has removed the names of more than 850 companies and public bodies that it had listed on its website as diversity champions.
Senior prosecutors in England and Wales have also been criticised for connections with the scheme. Last September it emerged that lawyers for a schoolgirl were bringing a legal challenge over the Crown Prosecution Service’s affiliation with Stonewall. She asked that the service withdraw from the champions scheme on the grounds that the group had misrepresented the law on transgender rights. The CPS refused, and the girl has applied for a judicial review.
Acas said that “due to cost reasons, we did not renew our membership of the Stonewall diversity champion scheme . . . we support the work that Stonewall does to help make workplaces inclusive”.
Liz Ward, a Stonewall director, confirmed Acas’s move and said it was up to employers how they met statutory requirements.
