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Agenda item

Report of the County Solicitor, (CSo/17/27), attached, on consideration of the County Council adopting gender neutral terms for the person(s) presiding at a meeting in the Council’s Constitution, Rules of Procedure (Standing Orders) and Working Practices.

Minutes:

(Councillor Atkinson attended under Standing Order 25(2) and spoke at the invitation of the Committee)

 

The County Solicitor reported that at the previous meeting and in accordance with Standing Order 23(2), Councillor Brennan had asked that the Committee consider amending the Council’s Constitution, Rules of Procedure (Standing Orders) and Working Practices to substitute an alternative, gender neutral, term in place of 'Chairman’ – which was felt to be unacceptable in society today – to describe or refer to the person presiding at a meeting.

 

The Committee was, at that meeting, invited to balance the status quo and any proposal for change against the Council’s own ‘Acceptable Language Guide’, common usage and parlance, personal preference and any statutory provisions/applications.  The Committee  had agreed that the suggestion that the Council’s Constitution should be amended by the deletion of the term Chairman and the substitution therefor of the term Chair be considered further at this meeting, together with the advice from the Council’s Equality Reference Group and any other official documentation, as appropriate.

 

The Committee was advised that the Equality Reference Group and Corporate Equality Officer considered this specific issue at its meeting in July 2017 and consequently  recommended that the Council should ensure gender neutral language in its written Constitution, removing the word "Chairman" and replacing it with "Chair" or "Chairperson" and ensuring also the use of his/her, s/he, or better still non-binary language: “their/them/they” as appropriate, accepting that  an individual may refer to themselves or want to be addressed as “Chairman” or “Chairwoman”  or other term,  if he/she so wished.

 

The Committee also highlighted that if recommending to the County Council to adopt a gender neutral approach as outlined above it would be deemed to apply automatically to the term Vice-Chairman.

 

The report further highlighted the recent Fawcett Report, which although initially focussing upon candidacy for Election through to becoming a Leader of a Council, made a series of recommendations that would bring more women into Local Government and help them to play a full role at all levels.

 

Whilst there was no specific mention of terminology with this specific report, it uses gender neutral language throughout and the Fawcett Society, previously, have published guidance on the use of gender neutral language, including a guide on how this is achieved in Parliament, particularly in respect of drafting Bills and new Legislation.

 

Whilst there was nothing in the Council’s Equality Policy that mandated the need to use gender neutral terminology, there was an Acceptable Language guide which set out some examples of what may or may not be “good to use”.  This was guidance to which reasonableness and common sense needed to be applied.

 

The Committee further noted that ‘writing for GOV.UK’ guidance advocated using gender neutral text wherever possible. Whilst this guidance was aimed at web based work, the principle applied in a wider context.

 

The Committee further considered that if the change was to be adopted, then any time and financial implications would need to be managed. With that in mind, the Committee were minded to suggest that such changes be made in line with other reviews of the documentation, but that the democracy centre could be updated as an immediate action.

 

It was MOVED by Councillor Hannaford, SECONDED by Councillor Aves, and

 

RESOLVED

 

(a) that the Committee accept the advice of the Equality Reference Group on its consideration of the use of an alternative, gender neutral, term in place of 'Chairman’ and recommend the Councils Constitution, Rules of Procedure (Standing Orders) and Working Practices be amended accordingly, as part of the wider review of the Constitution to be undertaken later in the year.

 

(b) that this Committee advocate the use of gender neutral language across the wider organisation, both on the website and in written publications, and the County Solicitor be asked to promote the request for that material to be updated as and when reviews of that documentation takes place.

Supporting documents:


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