FOI release

FOI 189 - INSS application to Stonewall Workplace Equality Index

Updated 17 August 2022

Our ref: FOI20/21-189

Date: 8 March 2021

Dear,

Re: Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Request

Thank you for your email of 7 February in which you requested from the Insolvency Service:

1. Any application you made in 2019 or 2020 to be a “Stonewall Diversity Champion” or to be included on Stonewall’s “Workplace Equality Index,” including any attachments or appendices to those applications. Please redact personal details if necessary.
2. Any feedback you received in 2019 or 2020 from Stonewall in relation to either application or programme.
3. Full details of any equality impact assessment you carried out connected with any of these applications (including any equality impact assessment carried out prior to an earlier application of the same kind, if no further assessment was done).
4. Details of the total amount of money you paid to Stonewall (i) in 2019; (ii) in 2020, whether or not as payment for goods or services.
5. Whether you intend to continue your membership of any Stonewall scheme in the future, and if so which.

Your request has been dealt with under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).

I can confirm the agency holds the information that you have requested, and I have provided answers to your questions below:

1. We submitted a WEI application; the documents are attached. We do not have the full submission copy because it is held on the Stonewall WEI system.
2. The feedback from the submission is attached. We do not have feedback from the programme itself apart from advertising material.
3. We have been Stonewall members since approximately 2011 and have used them as a consultation route as we did not have any employee network group in existence. No equality impact assessment was carried out before joining Stonewall as the membership of the organisation did not change any policy criterion or practice. This was a new introduction as part of the Equality Act and therefore we needed to ensure that we developed policies that were legally compliant.
4. Details of the total amount of money you paid to Stonewall (i) in 2019; (ii) in 2020, whether or not as payment for goods or services. 2019 - £3,000, 2020 - £3,000
5. We will continue to be members of the Stonewall Diversity Champion programme.

If you are not satisfied with the response we have provided you and would like us to reconsider our decision by way of an internal review (IR), please contact our Information Rights Team at foi@insolvency.gov.uk or by post at:

Information Rights Team The Insolvency Service
3rd Floor
Cannon House
18 Priory Queensway Birmingham
B4 6FD
United Kingdom

You also have the right to contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) if you wish for them to investigate any complaint you may have regarding our handling of your request. However, please note that the ICO is likely to expect an IR to have been completed in the first instance.

Yours sincerely,

Information Rights Team The Insolvency Service

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, Official receivers and the Adjudicator are Data Controllers in respect of personal data processed by the Insolvency Service. For the details about how personal data is processed by the agency, please see the full Insolvency Service Personal Information Charter here: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/insolvency-service/about/personal-information-charter