Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
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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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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Tags for Forum Posts: council, governance, online, operation, piss-take, questionnaire, sex-change
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
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But this applies to any consultation. Say 100% of those consulted said that they agreed with the proposal but the equalities questions showed that they were all white (yes, I agree that that is an extreme example). Then something is wrong with the way they are carrying out the consultation. It doesn't matter what the question is - it's a principle that applies to asking views on political leadership or asking Warham Road residents if they want extra parking restrictions. If they got back from the survey that all of the people who answered the survey were trans-gender, they are obviously doing soemthing wrong as well (or overwhelming black, or female and so on). All public bodies have an obligation to offer their service in way that can be equally acessed by all sectors of the communitiy. If you don't measure use or participation, how can you know that the way you are consulting actualy gives everyone an equal chance to take part?
I think you are focussing for some reason on questions about trans-gender people. A few years ago people asked just the questions about monitoring ethnicity, religon and gender. It's just that it's relatively new.
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Permalink Reply by StephenBln on
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John D wrote: Wouldn't H+tl+r have loved to have had a convenient database identifying Jews, Homosexuals and Gypsies ?
In Germany there has always been a church tax- that means everyones religion is stated on their tax card..
Very many people opt out of being 'in the church' and paying church tax (In fact, most people I know). They therefore forfeit their right to get married in a church/syanagogue (which BTW isn't legally binding and must be followed up by a civil service) or have a religious funeral service.
Anyway, that's how, plus the requirement for everyone to register where they live, the n+zis could abuse the system and knew where they could find certain people.
It amuses me that it always seems to be the same people who disapprove of local authorities collecting information, that are the ones most complain about abuses of the system.
There are so many benefits from the requirement to register where one lives, that it amazes me that the U.K. has never introduced it.. just a few..
With registration:
1/ It becomes apparent how many people live in a property (whether it is let out as bedsits or not).
2/ How long someone has lived in the Borough and therefore if that person is eligible for benefits/housing. Without being registered: no job, no bank account, no tax card, no benefits, no health service.
3/ Who can actually vote.. as well as car registration and dog registration (dog tax regulated by size of dog) - no letterbox addresses possible.
and please before anyone complains, I'm just illustrating the differences..
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Permalink Reply by John D on
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"
There are so many benefits from the requirement to register where one lives, that it amazes me that the U.K. has never introduced it.. just a few.. "
I think the wartime National Identity Cards carried this information.
I personally have no objection to carrying a card with the information you mention Stephen: I do object however to any requirement to specify what I like doing and to whom and whether I always had the appropriate equipment to do it with.
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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I WONDER if anyone in the council has stopped to consider whether or not their diversity-policy "monitoring" gathers any data that is worth anything?
Do council officers know what a scientifically conducted survey is? Do they know the difference between a random sample and a self-selected sample?
Has anyone stopped to use common sense about the likelihood of any transgender person actually choosing to identify themselves in a survey (together with name, address and phone number, all requested)?
And, least of all, providing details in a Consultation going to the local council for any purpose the council deems fit. Now or in the future?
Without this information that the council is seeking, to be recorded on a municipal database, where is the basis for discrimination?
It is not members of the public who can easily, or are likely to, discriminate against trans gender people. Once a trans gender person has surrendering their details to the council, it is none other than the council itself and its employees who are best placed to discriminate, lose, abuse and misuse the data.
Trans-gender people who give this more thought than the council has, are likely to come to the conclusion that a persistant council database is about the last place they wish to be recorded on.
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Permalink Reply by james walsh on
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And if we should happen to forget.........
http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/
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while i'm at it :
Tango orange drink was created by coca cola for the german nazis.
Hugo Boss the fashion house designed the 'SS' officers uniforms.
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Looks as if they are still at it James :-)
" IBM has signed a £265m contract announced in May with the Identity and Passport Service to run the biometric database that will form part of the National Identity Register "
Acknowledgement to Computing.co.uk
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Sorry Tango i got you mixed up with FANTA (both orange drinks).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanta
And here's the Hugo Boss connection.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Boss
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James you forgot to mention the wartime British Government - they knew for years before the general public, what was going on-- could have bombed the railway supply lines to the camps (they bombed everything else), Many people in the camps used to see allied planes fly over day after day - but nothing was done.. and the trains kept arriving..
I happen to think that there was probably plenty of anti-Semitic feeling in the government, of course we all know of Lord Londonderry, therefore stopping the killing wasn't a high priority for the cabinet..
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IBM solved the awesomely huge logistics problem of keeping Nazi trains running etc. Even today germans are considered 'efficient'.
StephenBin Lets not get carried away with an idea that the british government colluded with the nazis in any way. Thats a conspiracy too far for me. I've heard the argument that the RAF could have done something to help people in concentration camps, but didn't, (i don't agree). Remember, the RAF was desperately short of planes and they could only afford to use them on 'most important missions'. They had a war to win, you could say they did not make all the right choices and the argument will go on.
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OK James last point from me, I never said that the government 'colluded' - But I'm afraid the RAF did have enough planes to bounce more bombs on bomb-sites.. and no the British government didn't do anything to help the condition of those in camps..
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..........'And the argument will go on...'
(Glad i got the last word)
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