Letter to Permanent Secretary - For Women Scotland

Since our UK Supreme Court judgment in April there has been almost ten weeks of prevaricating by the Scottish Government and little, if anything, by way of action to implement the ruling. Two nationwide documents, the Government transgender guidance for schools and the Scottish Prison Service transgender custody policy, remain stubbornly in place despite their non-compliance with the Equality Act. Meetings and correspondence with Ministers has not persuaded them to take any responsibility and government officials have misrepresented communications from the EHRC.

We have sent the following letter to Joe Griffin, Permanent Secretary, asking for an investigation into a likely breach of the Civil Service Code and for him, as lead on the working group formed to review policies, to immediately withdraw the school and prison guidance and ensure a directive is issued so that children are no longer permitted to access facilities provided for the opposite sex and men are removed from the women’s prisons estate.

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Enclosures to above letter: FWS letter to the EHRC on 09 June 2025 and the reply from Baroness Falkner on 20 June 2025.

Update 28 June 2025:
We received the following response from the Permanent Secretary. We note the unlawful school guidance and prison guidance are still in force.

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Covered by The Herald: Swinney government accused of twisting EHRC advice

We sent the following response back to the Permanent Secretary.

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