Scotland’s civil service agreed to delete the word ‘MOTHER’ from its maternity leave policy

Oct 20, 2021 by

by Rory Tingle, Mailonline:

Stonewall requests ministers to remove ‘gendered’ words from official policies.

The Scottish civil service agreed to delete the word ‘mother’ from its maternity leave policy after pressure from under-fire LGBT charity Stonewall, it has emerged.

Documents released under Freedom of Information laws uncovered how Leslie Evans, the permanent secretary, agreed to make the change in a bid to climb the lobby group’s controversial Workplace Equality Index.

Stonewall requests ministers to remove ‘gendered’ words from official policies as part of its advice on becoming more LGBT friendly.

Scottish government officials highlighted Ms Sturgeon’s attendance at Pride marches as part of a dossier of evidence meant to impress Stonewall judges

In order to achieve a better ranking, the Scottish government removed ‘mother’ from its maternity policy, replacing a passage including the term with ‘you must be the spouse or partner (including same-sex partner) or the pregnant woman’.

Officials also highlighted Nicola Sturgeon’s attendance at Pride marches as part of a dossier of evidence meant to impress Stonewall judges, according to Nolan Investigates, a podcast run by 5 Live presenter Stephen Nolan.

The programme also revealed how the Scottish government has paid Stonewall £415,000 in grants between April 2017 and last month, in addition to thousands of pounds worth of membership fees.

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