Just Plain Sense

At least 11% of Britain’s population falls into the category of Black or Minority Ethnic (BME). Yet that umbrella term conceals a huge diversity in itself. Although it’s tempting to think in terms of some of the most obvious groups, such as people who’ve originated from Africa, the West Indies or Asia, or those from the middle east, it’s easy to forget all the other backgrounds that people have. Irish people are considered an ethnic group, for instance. So are white Europeans from the enlarged European Community. In this Episode Rushi Munshi, a Regional Director for the Council for Ethnic Minority Voluntary Sector Organisations (CEMVO), describes how his organisation works with the vast number of voluntary sector organisations representing this varied segment of Britain's society.

The Queen's Speech in late autumn marks the beginning of each new Parliamentary term. It's a time when the Government reveals its' legislative plans for the coming year. This year's event is on December 3rd. However, these days, the speech seldom contains any big surprises, as so much about the agenda is extensively trailed beforehand.

One item expected in this new term will be the new Single Equality Bill -- the most radical attempt to overhaul Britain's equality law framework in forty years. To mark that watershed this episode looks back on that forty year history, discusses some of the issues about equality legislation, how the Government has developed the new Bill, and what it is expected to contain.

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The three statutory equality duties in Britain - covering Race, Disability and Gender - all demand consultation or involvement with expert community stakeholders if problem identification and action planning is ever to be more than a token affair. The problem lies with how to organise that kind of engagement effectively. Consider North West England. The region has over 30,000 voluntary sector organisations. Yet the number with sufficient capacity and skills to take part in strategic consultation work hardly exceed single figures. With well over 120 separate public authorities all needing to organise the same kind of consultation, there's the potential for meltdown unless a practical approach is adopted. Sefton is a diverse coastal borough which stretches from Liverpool in the south and almost up to Blackpool. Along its coast lies Southport, a distinguished old-style holiday resort which is reinventing itself for a new generation. I was invited there recently to give a speech as part of the borough's annual diversity week. And whilst I was there I had the chance to speak with the people behind the borough's 'joined-up' partnership approach to collective consultation and strategy-making...

She has been likened to Marmite: you either love what she writes or hate it. Outspoken Guardian columnist and radical lesbian feminist Julie Bindel is widely praised by some for the campaigning she has done on the issues of violence against women, and on the way that our legal system responds to women who defend themselves. She is treasured by others for the particular way she reveals her lesbian and feminist influences as a broadsheet columnist. Yet, on the day when I had long arranged to meet for lunch and talk about these things, Julie was also embroiled in a controversy that had arisen over what she had written and said in the past about transsexual people. This issue was suddenly brought to the boil because she had been nominated for an award as “Journalist of the Year” by the leading British Lesbian and Gay charity Stonewall. We discussed all these things and hopefully opened doors to dialogue with her detractors over a meal -- though I hasten to add that Marmite wasn't on the menu. Note that comments on this item are now closed for the reasons explained below

Falling birthrates, increased life-expectancy and the approaching retirement of the so-called "baby boom" generation mean that the population balance is altering. In 1998 just 32.4% of Britons were aged over fifty. By 2021 that proportion is expected to have burgeoned to over 40%. What effects will that have on the economy, public health strategy, the planning of housing and infrastructure? I asked the public for their views and interviewed experts from a group called 50-50 Vision, who have the task of proposing strategies to anticipate and cope with the change.

Britain's voluntary and community organisations (sometimes referred to as the "third sector") are far more numerous and integral to the operation of society than people often imagine. The sector involves hundreds of thousands of people and has an essential role in delivering many services that the public and private sectors are unable to provide. Richard Caulfield is the Chief Executive of Voluntary Sector North West - a key strategic player in seeing that voluntary sector organisations are supported and recognised in a region of 6.8 million people. We met recently in Manchester and Richard explained about the background of his organisation, the roles that voluntary organisations perform and the challenges and opportunities for the entire sector.

Back in April this year I interviewed the mother of an intensely gender dysphoric child. She told how her child (now living as a girl) had become increasingly desperate and suicidal as the prospect of a masculine puberty grew larger. Specialists in the UK weren't prepared to medicate in order to delay the irreversible effects her child's body would undergo and, in desperation, she took her child across the Atlantic to Boston instead. The Royal Society of Medicine convened a conference to debate this issue in October. However, the country's leading specialist Professor Richard Green, was concerned that the speakers selected for that conference were mostly based in the "conservative" camp. In response he organised a pre-emptive conference of his own at Imperial College in London, where specialists successfully practicing puberty delay therapy around the world could present their outcome data and experiences. I went along to Richard Green's conference at his invitation and recorded interviews with many of the speakers for this detailed feature.

A couple of weeks ago I invited listeners to complete a short audience feedback survey whilst I decided whether to do any more "Just Plain Sense" Podcasts after the exhausting first run. Well, you didn't disappoint! The good news is that your helpful feedback and encouraging words have persuaded me to prepare a second series. The recordings for the first proper episode are already "in the can" in fact. Whilst I settle down to edit those, however, this curtain raiser looks at what you liked -- and weren't so keen about. There are tantalising previews of the next episode's controversial contributors. And now there's a theme tune too -- composed and performed originally by LIPA student Kate Threlfall for North West England's annual celebration of diversity, Celebr8, Don't Discrimin8.

Birmingham Selly Oak MP Lynne Jones says she never set out to have a political career -- she just got sucked into one. Now, 33 years after first getting hooked, and 16 years after first entering Parliament, she has declared her intention to stand down at the next election. In this detailed interview, Lynne talks about the experience of being a woman in Parliament, balancing personal convictions with party loyalty, some of the causes she has taken up over the years, and overall progress towards a more diverse legislature.

It is an occupational hazard of organising speaking events that now and then one of your speakers will be suddenly and unexpectedly indisposed. When that happens you can either leave a gap -- or try and fill the breach yourself. This is a problem that arose in the third of our recent conference / workshops on the Gender Equality Duty in Health. At each event civil servants from the Department of Health had volunteered to come and deliver their version of a common presentation about their department's approach, and what it should mean. However, on our last day, one of them was prevented at the very last minute from attending. Fortunately I'm familiar with what was going to be said -- in part because I contribute regularly to two community stakeholder engagement groups, including an advisory group on Gender Equality. This meant I was able to step in at short notice and fill the gap -- although the emphasis is inevitably my own as a result. In the next episode we change tack again, with an in-depth interview with the Labour back bench MP Dr Lynne Jones. Lynne has lots to say about equality and diversity -- in and out of Parliament, so be sure you don't miss that episode, coming up soon.

In the third of this series of episodes covering the recent NHS Northwest Gender Equality conferences we come now to the advice and guidance of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Several EHRC staff contributed to the three events that we ran, and I'd like to thank Sam Pryke, David Howard and Vivienne Stone who all made great contributions besides Merryn Wells, featured here. Merryn gave the main EHRC presentation at our third event in Preston. She is the Commission’s “Transfer of Expertise Manager”. Among her many skills honed in a 25 year equalities career she managed a recent project looking at gender equality in the NHS and also worked with the Royal College of Nursing, advising HR managers in that sector on the gender equality duty. For those reasons she was ideally placed to connect with an audience of NHS managers. Click here if you would like to view and follow a handout of Merryn's slides whilst listening. (PDF, 90Kb) In the next episode hear how I ad-libbed my way through explaining the Department of Health's viewpoint when the civil servant booked to speak was unable to attend for very good reasons

In the second of this series of episodes covering the recent NHS Northwest Gender Equality conferences it is the turn of the Men... Peter Baker is the Chief Executive of the Men's Health Forum -- a charity which works to improve male health in England and Wales. His presentation to us in Preston was every bit as challenging as the women's message featured in the previous episode, though markedly different. It was research by MHF that first highlighted how many NHS gender equality schemes in England appeared to have very little disaggregated evidential data, were focussed on processes rather than outcomes, or were lacking in effective consultation and involvement with service users. Many speakers stressed that equality in this context does not mean providing the same service to everyone. That's not what the law requires, and stark differences in priorities were very clear in the different messages from the men and women presenters seeking the same equality of health outcomes. Peter's presentation highlights a set of key areas where he says targetted action could be brought to bear on specific health inequalities for men; he also demonstrates how novel approaches can be used to get essential messages across to the men themselves. Click here if you would like to view and follow a handout of Peter's slides whilst listening. (PDF, 1.2Mb) In the next episode you can hear the EHRC's guidance for NHS organisations on what they expect when examining equality schemes for compliance.

Attention has been focussed recently on whether NHS Trusts in England are responding properly to the Gender Equality Duty, since it came into force in April 2007. Research by the Men's Health Forum highlighted that many of the published gender equality schemes it had researched were poorly evidenced, focussed on processes rather than outcomes, and showed a lack of effective consultation and involvement with service users. Plain Sense was recently commissioned to put together a series of conference workshops for senior NHS Trust managers in England's North West region, to discuss how to be more effective and compliant in this area. Presenters included figures from the Strategic Health Authority, the Department of Health and the Equality and Human Rights Commission to explain what was expected. Just as importantly, an array of stakeholder speakers were invited to explain their view of the real priorities for promoting equality. Karen Moore is a policy officer with the Women's Resource Centre - a national umbrella organisation based in London. In her speech, presented here in full, she challenged NHS Trust managers to look strategically at issues like violence against women and support for rape crisis centres as a means of avoiding longer term and more intractable mental and physical health issues. Afterwards her colleague, Darlene Corry, provided an interview summing up the challenges and opportunities in thinking 'out of the box' on these kinds of issues. If you would like to view a handout of Karen's slides whilst listening to her talk then click on this link. (PDF 141Kb; 4 pages) In the next episode it's the men's turn.

This week, as the third and final installment of the "Life in a Day" conference coverage, I'm featuring my own keynote presentation at that event: And then we had 'T' With more time to spend than in the recent Nottingham event, and with a broader audience of public services in the audience, this presentation covers some different ground, and includes a tongue-in-cheek 'confession'. There are, of course, some familiar elements too. After quite a lot of LGBT coverage recently, the next few episodes will be moving on to look at Men and Women's experiences of health, and the Department of Health's strategy for Gender Equality. In the coming week I also have a very special interview guest booked, and they will be appearing in a later episode. So do 'stay tuned'.

Linda Bellos isn't the sort of woman to mince words. She says she doesn't care so much what people think, but about how they behave. She's also angry about receiving a different level of treatment from public services when she's paid as much for them as everyone else. This is the second in a series of three episodes based on the conference "A Life in a Day", organised by Leicester Lesbian Gay and Bisexual Centre on 5th June. In the next episode you can hear my own keynote address at the same event -- and don't forget that by "subscribing" to this Podcast channel you'll be notified automatically the moment this and other new episodes come online.