§ Sandra GidleyTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if she will list the women's organisations which have been consulted over the proposed legislation by her Department during the 2000–01 and 2001–02 Sessions; and if their responses have been published. [58184]
§ Mr. Ivan Lewis[holding answer 22 May 2002]: My Department is keen to include all interested parties in developing policies that affect them. Information on informal consultation is not held centrally. However, the women's organisations which have been formally consulted in writing by this Department since 2000 are as follows:
- Women's National Commission
- British International Women Graduates
- Women in Journalism
- National Alliance of Women's Organisations
- Royal College of Midwives
- Bolton Metro's Corporate Women's Group
- National Council of Women of GB.
Individual responses are not published but, in accordance with the Cabinet Office Code of Practice on Written Consultation, are generally made available to anyone who asks for them.
§ Sandra GidleyTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if she has established a baseline for policy appraisals against which to measure progress on equal treatment; and what progress has been achieved. [58182]
§ Mr. Ivan Lewis[holding answer 22 May 2002]: Our approach to ensure progress on equal treatment is to ensure that equality becomes part and parcel of every element of policy, programme and service delivery.
1046WOur recent mainstreaming review indicated that while we have good equality practices in some areas of the organisation, we could do more in the policy processes to support this. As a result, we have further developed this approach by encouraging all our policy makers to "mainstream" equal opportunities into all programmes and policies. To this end, we have developed a webtool to help them build equality considerations into their work from the outset. The "Fairway" webtool also includes good practice examples showing how some policy teams have taken this forward. Other "equality" measures included:
- Embedding equality into our staff appraisal process;
- Equality processing our business planning and our end of year reviews with the permanent secretary;
- We regularly discuss equality and diversity issues with the senior members of the board and regular meetings between the senior equality adviser and the permanent secretary;
- A yearly Staff survey which has a specific chapter dedicated to equality and diversity issues.
An example of these actions is that our Connexions Partnerships are required in their business plans to state how they will ensure that personal advisers come from a diversity of backgrounds. The Connexions Service National Unit monitors the diversity of each partnership's personal adviser work force, including gender and ethnicity.
We publicise all this through our internal communications system and our external DfES website (if appropriate).
Effective mainstreaming requires policy developers to work in consultation and partnership with organisations representing minority and disadvantaged groups, using research, monitoring and evaluation to understand customer needs and the impact their policies are having on them.
We will continue to address this and measure our progress.
§ Sandra GidleyTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if she will list the subject of each gender impact assessment drawn up by her Department since June 1997, indicating in each case whether the outcome has been(a) put out to consultation and (b) published. [58183]
§ Mr. Ivan Lewis[holding answer 22 May 2002]: In 1998, in consultation with the Home Office and the former Department for Education and Employment, the Cabinet Office issued Policy Appraisal for Equal Treatment 1047W (PAET) guidelines to all Government Departments. DfES has intentionally not focused just on gender issues but have focused on a wider range of equality issues.
Our recent mainstreaming review indicated that while we have good equality practices in some areas of the organisation, we could do more in the policy processes to support this. As a result, we have further developed this approach by encouraging all our policy makers to "mainstream" Equal Opportunities into all programmes and policies. To this end, we have developed a webtool to help them build equality considerations into their work from the outset. The "Fairway" web tool also includes good practice examples showing how some policy teams have taken this forward. Other "equality" measures included:
- Embedding equality into our staff appraisal process;
- Equality processing our business planning and our end of year reviews with the Permanent Secretary;
- We regularly discuss equality and diversity issues with the members of the board and regular meetings between the Senior Equality Adviser and the Permanent Secretary.
An example of these actions is that our Connexions Partnerships are required in their business plans to state how they will ensure that Personal Advisers come from a diversity of backgrounds. The Connexions Service National Unit monitors the diversity of each partnership's Personal Adviser workforce, including gender and ethnicity.
We publicise all this through our internal communications system or our external DfES website (if appropriate).
Effective mainstreaming requires policy developers to work in consultation and partnership with organisations representing minority and disadvantaged groups, using research, monitoring and evaluation to understand customer needs and the impact their policies are having on them.
We will continue to address this and measure our progress.