Finance Minister says NI Civil Service doesn't need to take Stonewall's advice - but its own report describes it as 'best practice'
Sinn Fein’s finance minister has defended civil service membership of Stonewall’s controversial diversity scheme – suggesting it was because it is inclusive.
John O’Dowd was questioned about the spending by the DUP’s Jonathan Buckley in the Assembly on Monday – and said the civil service paid for advice from the LGBTQ+ lobby group, but didn’t have to take it on board.
That’s despite the Northern Ireland Civil Service (NICS) publicly stating that it uses the Stonewall ‘Workplace Equality Index’ (WEI) as “a key tool in measuring our diversity and inclusion progress”. It also says that it treats Stonewall’s asks under the WEI as “best practice criteria”.
If Stonewall approves of an organisation’s policies and actions, they achieve a higher ranking on a league table scored by the charity. Last year NICS received a ‘silver award’ from the lobby group for being an ‘LGBTQ+ inclusive employer’.
NICS is still a member of Stonewall, despite the majority of UK government departments ditching it. TUV MLA Timothy Gaston said it was time Mr O’Dowd ditched the “discredited” organisation.
In the Assembly chamber, Upper Bann MLA Mr Buckley said the minister could look at “wasteful spend” in his own department – saying it was still funding “the radical, discredited Stonewall charity through the Department of Finance”.
He said it was “associated with radical gender policies upon younger age children” and asked if the finance minister would cut it. Mr O’Dowd said the spend of £2,575 “is given to Stonewall each year for services to the department and advice to the department” – and as with all advice, the department does not have to take that advice on board.
“But we are a fair employer department. We are an inclusive department. We want to see a workforce which has all its rights and entitlements in place, and we will take that advice from a number of sources as well”.
He added that it is “important we are reaching out to a wide range of organizations for that advice”. When asked by the News Letter if the department pays any LGB or 'gender critical' organisations for advice, the department did not address the point.