YOUR sex change operation: the council wants to know

LAST night at an Area Assembly Meeting, Cllr. Brian Haley admitted to having reservations about a question in the council's recent on-line survey about Council Governance.

This questionnaire sought to establish your opinion on whether the council should have a council leader with enhanced powers or a directly elected Mayor. This was the first and only question on the subject and it was brief to the point of terse. There was no background information on the survey itself, although there was on the council's website.

The following questions related to more intimate detail.

More than 95% of the on-line questionnaire was about the respondent's personal characteristics. Age and gender are pretty standard. But most of it was about race in the finest detail, sex, religion and disability. The most curious question of all asked if you'd had a sex change operation (although more delicately worded).

I regard council governance as a serious question. If the consultation is reasonably about Council Governance (as encouraged by government policy) and Haringey treats us to a question as to whether we have had a sex change, how seriously can we take this survey?

I understand this remarkable question appears in other documents the council produces; indeed it was repeated in a questionnaire hand-out at the council's Area Assembly meeting.

To re-punctuate an American slogan: "Your tax dollars: at work?!"

Is someone at the council taking the piss?

Or are they serious?

If so, I think some council officers need to get outside the municipal bubble and ask real people, including those who have had "gender reassignment", how such questions are relevant to council governance.

[I find it hard to beleive this is a factual account of what has happened. I have attached a screen-shot, by way of pinching myself]

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