The government has just now published a review led by UCL’s Professor Alice Sullivan into the state of UK statistical research into sex and gender. It has some worrying conclusions…
Sullivan, who has been working on this since February last year, finds that in the NHS “gender identity is consistently prioritised over or replaces sex” and there is a “clear clinical risk” from any lack of diligence on sex data collection which “has potentially fatal consequences for trans people.” Results from collecting over 800 official datasets and data collection policies show a marked decline in collection of sex-based data as opposed to subjective gender questions…
Sullivan also finds that the Office for National Statistics has a “partisan climate on certain issues, including gender, within the organisation.” Civil servants? Partisan? Surely not…
There are some key recommendations:
- Data on sex should be collected by default in all research and data collection commissioned by government and quasi-governmental organisations.
- The default target of any sex question should be sex (in other words, biological sex, natal sex, sex at birth). Sullivan includes a handy example…
- The word ‘gender’ should be avoided in question wording.
- The NHS should cease the practice of issuing new NHS numbers and changed ‘gender’ markers to individuals, as this means that data on sex is lost, thereby putting individuals at risk regarding clinical care, screening, and safeguarding, as well as making vital research following up individuals who have been through a gender transition across the life course impossible.
- The UK Statistics Authority should consider undertaking a review of activism and impartiality within the civil service, in relation to the production of official statistics.
- Ministers should consider the vulnerability of government and public bodies to internal activism that seeks to influence outward-facing policy, including through staff networks, and whether stronger safeguards are needed.
The finger is being squarely pointed at progressive civil servants for this one. It is up to Labour to decide what to do with this review now the gauntlet has been thrown down. Careless data collection costs lives…
Speaking at his speech on how to achieve “progressive capitalism” Wes Streeting fired a dig and Andy Burnham:
“Bond markets are not bond villains and fiscal rules matter.”
