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17 Mar 07 DDPersPol(E) SUMMARY OF DISCUSSION AT THE MEETING ON THE LGBT WORKSTRAND HELD AT CHQ ON 6 FEB 07 INTRODUCTION 1. Occasion. A meeting was held at CHQ on 6 Feb 07 to progress engagement between RAF E&D staff and representatives of the RAF’s LGBT community. The salient points, as précised below, are based on the recollection of Flt Lt Johnston-Davis and do not necessarily reflect current RAF policy or the consensus of opinion in the RAF LGBT community. 2. Participation. Deputy Director, Personnel Policy (Employment) Gp Capt Richard Castle, WO E&D WO Neil Bailey and SO2 E&D were present, representing the RAF E&D team involved in LGBT workstrand work. From the RAF LGBT community Sqn Ldr Mark Abrahams, Flt Lt Philip Johnston-Davis and Sgt Amanda Spurr attended. GENERAL E&D LGBT WORKSTRAND DISCUSSIONS 3. Workstrand Priorities. The LGBT Workstrand has been identified as the RAF’s priority workstrand for 2007. This follows on from the recent membership of Diversity Champions in Dec 06. It will engender a focus of effort on conference and other LGBT initiatives in-year. 4. E&D Action Plan 2007/09. The Action Plan is an overarching strategy document which spans all the E&D workstrands. It was confirmed that there are no single-workstrand plans which sit below this overall document. The next iteration of the plan will include an item on the Gender Equality Duty which will underpin the appropriate formulation of policies with respect to transsexual service personnel (via the Gender Impact Assessment Tool). Action: A draft of the RAF E&D Action Plan was shared with those present with a request for comments by 9 Mar 07. 5. RAF News Article. It was explained that RAF News would probably look favourably on a 1/2 page article which highlighted the people perspective. If properly constructed the article could include a short personal account from a lesbian and a gay man, while highlighting the formal and informal support mechanisms in a call-out box. It would also act as an excellent advertisement for the Nov 07 Conference. The Jan 07 group photo from the Conference could be incorporated, as it was already agreed by all that it could be published, but this would need to be highlighted to participants before the event. Action: Sqn Ldr Abrahams and Sgt Spurr agreed to try to identify suitable personnel for the article. 6. LGB, LGB(T) or LGBT? T was important to standardise whether the community should encompass, and be referred to as, LGB, LGB(T), LGBT or any other descriptor. It was agreed that with the exception of such documents as Guidance Notes to COs the community would be consistently referred to as LGBT . Whereas transsexual (TS) personnel would be welcomed and that this outreach should be made clear by using the inclusive LGBT descriptor, it would only cover those TS personnel who were lesbian or gay in their target gender. RAF LGBT COMMUNITY FOCUS 7. Constitution. Gp Capt Castle expressed satisfaction at progress in the setting up of an informal RAF LGBT group, or community focus, with which the E&D staff could interact. In addition to the 4 personnel who had already participated in meetings with the E&D staff it was proposed to extend the group to around 10 members. It was agreed that the overall composition of the community focus should be drawn from across the rank structure and the trades and branches, to reflect the breadth of experiences and situations in today’s RAF. To that end would speak to their circle of contacts and invite selected individuals to join the group. Action: Sqn Ldr Abrahams and Sgt Spurr were asked to lead in building a representative group of gay men and lesbians in advance of the next meeting. [follow-up note: Caroline Chase has agreed to join the community focus] 8. Representativity. In order for the community focus to be truly representative it was important to include at the very least the opinions and concerns of bisexual and transsexual (TS) personnel. Only a proportion of TS personnel would wish to be associated with the LGB body but it was felt that the both small number of pre-op personnel and the probability that many post-op TS personnel would wish simply to get on with life in their new identity made a separate organisation unsustainable. Sqn Ldr Abrahams agreed to contact an individual who would probably be happy to represent TS personnel. Bisexual representation might best be pursued via a post on proud2serve inviting personnel to contact the community focus. 9. Next Meeting. Action: WO Bailey was asked to find a suitable date for the next community focus meeting in Jun 07. STONEWALL DIVERSITY CHAMPIONS 10. Benchmarking. The Workplace Equality Index Questionnaire was passed out for awareness of the questions that are asked of each organisation. Action: Participants were asked to review the form and consider which areas may currently contain ‘gotchas’ for the RAF at the outset of our DC membership, and respond to the E&D staff by 12 Mar. JOINT SERVICE CONFERENCE ON LGBT MATTERS 11. Organisation. The RAF agreed in principle at the Jan 07 Conference to be the lead Service in organising the next Jt Svce Conference. At the meeting Flt Lt Johnston-Davis agreed to act as ProjO for the Conference. He would liaise with the organisers of the previous 2 successful Conferences to identify best practice and any pitfalls. A small group of volunteers would be identified from the RAF, as lead Service this year, to help organise and run the Conference; a focal point for RN/RM and the Army would also be identified. 12. Date and Time. Whilst acknowledging the aspirations of the RAF Breakout Session at the Jan 07 Conference it was agreed that a central London, late-week Conference would be most appropriate to the current climate and would maximise attendance. It should be at the start of the month and clearly offset from Remembrance, the Christmas season and the summer break. Subject to venue availability, all-day Friday was the preferred option, with a Thursday lunchtime start as a secondary option. Action: The Conference would be organised to take place on Friday 2 Nov. 13. Venue. Following on from the findings of the RAF break-out session at the Jan 07 conference it was agreed that the most effective location for the Nov 07 conference would be in central London and that the Union Jack Club was an ideal venue. However the Services’ Victory Club fulfilled the same criteria and was worthy of investigation. Action: Flt Lt Johnston-Davis would examine the price, facilities and availability of venues and report back by the end of Mar 07. 14. Funding. RAF E&D agreed to provide funding for the hire of the venue and, within budget, to cover the cost of a buffet lunch for delegates in order to maximise the time available to working groups. The balance would be raised by a small fee charged against delegates, to cover other incidental costs. 15. Title. It was important the Conference should be seen to be inclusive, not exclusive, and explicitly open to service personnel from any service, regardless of their sexual orientation. To that end the Conference would officially be known as ‘The Joint Service Conference on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transsexual Matters’ Action: All to adopt the agreed nomenclature for the Conference henceforth. 16. Agenda. There was a broad-ranging discussion on possible agenda items for inclusion. These are summarised below and can be considered to be a list from which a formal agenda will emerge:
17. Format. In order to engender more interaction from delegates, the presentations and break-out groups would be interspersed. Groups would be asked to report back on their discussions and any recommendations would be minuted into the end of Conference report which would be given the widest possible circulation. There would be no formal event in the evening but a buffet lunch would be included to encourage discussion and maximise contact time. The event would be concluded in time to allow personnel to disperse and regroup for informal networking in the evening. 18. Opening Speaker. The aspiration is to continue with the example set by the RN in the person of the Naval Secretary, RAdm Richard Ibbotson, whereby the Service’s senior Personnel Policy Officer, i.e. the newly-appointed AMP, would officially open the Conference with a keynote address, including a personal message of support from CAS. DPP/Gp Capt Castle agreed to identify an appropriate senior representative and invite them to address the Conference in November. 19. Publicity – Official Channels. The previous Conferences potentially suffered from limited official notification although they were promulgated to the RN via RNTM. The limited publicity was due partially to concerns over adverse attention and the initial single service initiative. It was agreed that it would be critical to produce a Jt DIN as soon as possible to provide the formal footing for the Conference and attendees, and that this should be supported by news items in the single service publications and via defenceNet. Actions: Sponsor Jt DIN. DDPersPol(E) agreed to request to AMP’s office that he make an opening address to the Conference. He would also write to all Stn Cdrs in the early summer to highlight the Conference and supporting DIN. 20. Publicity – Informal / Community Channels. The Conference would be strongly marketed to the service community by all members of the proud2serve.net forum. They would be encouraged to attend and to cascade the information through their own networks as widely as possible. The question of outreach to the heterosexual community was not specifically discussed but was noted elsewhere as being of importance, under the watchword of integration, not segregation. PARTICIPATION IN PRIDE 21. Decision on Participation. It was roundly anticipated that at least 25 RAF personnel of all ranks would wish to participate in an official capacity in the 2007 Pride parade through London. This was born out by the initial responses in the Pride topic on proud2serve.net showing most voters keen to walk in the parade in uniform. 22. Agreed Format. Forum discussions and the RAF group at the Jan 07 Conference suggested that a recruitment vehicle would provide a sensible compromise . However it was understood that there were IofR concerns over the effectiveness of Pride events as a recruitment vehicle, partly due to anecdotal feedback from Brighton. Personnel at the meeting reinforced that the success of any initiative could not be measured as there was no mechanism at point of recruitment to ask whether recruits had joined because they had seen an advert in the gay press (clearly this would run contrary to E&D policy!). Any campaign or initiative would have to be sustained to be effective or would be perceived as lip-service to obtain necessary ticks in the box (this should be addressed in the RAF E&D Action Plan). Any perusal of personal introductions on proud2serve.net would highlight the number of people who had responded positively during their decision making on careers to an RAF presence at gay events and highlighted that their presence had been a key factor in the decision to join up. A further aspect worthy of consideration is that whilst it is easy to identify women and ethnic minorities in uniform, and therefore promote them in PR messages, highlighting ‘hidden’ LGBT personnel or their integration into the workforce, outside of community events, was more problematic. Action: DDPersPol(E) agreed to engage with IofR over the utility of Pride as a recruitment vehicle. 23. Timelines for Action and Decision. As AMP would shortly be taking up post there would be no immediate decision until he had been able to provide his personal vision, Direction and Guidance on the question of uniform and formal participation in the round. Furthermore, with the same policy on public military events covering the RAF and other services, the RAF could not take a decision on participation in uniform in isolation. 24. ProjO. There was a clear need to identify a Project Officer to carry forward the planning and to co-ordinate the eventual participation. Actions: Sqn Ldr Abrahams and Sgt Spurr would seek to identify suitable gay male and lesbian leads; proud2serve.net would continue to be used as the main channel for inviting and co-ordinating the RAF participation, from a community perspective. OTHER BUSINESS 25. Monitoring. Sexual orientation (SO) monitoring is a key plank in the Stonewall DC scheme and they believe that there is a strong business case for monitoring SO, with benefits for the organisation and its staff. Disquiet in the RAF was greater amongst those who had not heard the brief by Stonewall. However, the debate for the RAF/jt svcs was largely academic in the short term as the timescales of any implementation would be governed by the JPA art of the possible. It was unlikely that there would be any implementation of an additional SO field on personnel profiles within 18 - 24 months. There would also be an associated cost to obtain the uncertain benefit of another statistic of questionable reliability, with no robust or universal control value in wider society. With appropriate caveats it could be used for trend analysis and observing a change in self-identification; this may indicate successes in a positive climate in the workplace and policy initiatives. It was suggested that this money would be much better spent on promoting awareness of the MOD complaints procedure in a more accessible way to JRs and the front line. The debate on SO monitoring was far from conclusive and would be monitored by E&D and the community, however it was agreed that:
26. Homophobia. DDPersPol(E) asked whether homophobia was actually still a problem in the workplace in the RAF. It was possible that overt anti-gay language was concentrated in training establishments and was not widespread in the front line. However, every branch, trade and unit had their own conditions and workplace pressures to contend with as well as aspects of generation and rank which could not be isolated. Actions: Review free text entries in the Continuous Attitude Survey, solicit anecdotes on discrimination or bad language in the workplace. P R JOHNSTON for details of previous meetings which discussed matters of interest to the LGBT community within the RAF, go to the RAF community consultation page. discuss this subject in the proud2serve.net public forum
page: Royal Air Force ::
20070206-RAF_LGBT_community_focus_consultation |
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