Letter to Permanent Secretary
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.
View letter as a PDF
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.
View as a PDF
Covered by The Herald: Swinney government accused of twisting EHRC advice
We sent the following response back to the Permanent Secretary.
View as a PDF
Update 25 July 2025:
We received the following response from the Permanent Secretary regarding their investigation into our complaint of a breach of the Civil Service Code. Unsurprisingly, their revisionist version of events found “no issues arise in terms of compliance with the Civil Service Code”.
View as a PDF
Update 22 August 2025:
Further information has come to light via a Freedom of Information response which prompted us to write again to the Permanent Secretary asking that our complaint is escalated.
View as a PDF
PDF of the minutes of the meeting between Scottish Government officials and the EHRC on 30 April.