Engender blog
All of Engender’s latest news. Reports, reviews, books, articles, and information from across Scotland’s women’s sector.
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‘Welfare’ and women: an update
Last week, George Osborne announced that the Treasury will start publishing annual breakdowns of public tax spend per head, in a move that will apparently increase transparency for taxpayers.
Cue rounds of analysis raising bones of contention online. It is in no way surprising that ‘welfare’ has been at the heart of debate, with many commentators quick to point out that our esteemed HMT has chosen to chunk up the data such that ‘welfare’ spending is represented extremely misleadingly indeed.
Guest Post: Trans and intersex equality voice grows louder as largest conference in Scotland is held
By James Morton
From Friday 31 Oct to Sunday 2 Nov, Scotland held its largest transgender and intersex equality conference with over 250 people participating. The Trans and Intersex Conference of the Isles took place in Edinburgh and was organised by the Scottish Transgender Alliance and Equality Network thanks to funding from VisitScotland, the Scottish Government and the University of Edinburgh.
Constitutions work wrap-up
The referendum and subsequent invigorating
deadlines set down by the Smith Commission have been keeping us policy types
busy these past few months.
Tomorrow we will be publishing our submission to the Smith Commission on further devolution and, although we will continue to engage with latter stages of the process, this will draw a close to our Scotland’s Futures advocacy and engagement work. Here, then, is a quick look at what the final stages of the project have entailed and how this links to future plans.
Women and the draft Scottish budget 2015-16
One of the things that Engender does that we're nerdily excited by, is to provide support to the Scottish Women's Budget Group. Some of our staff and members are long-time members of the budget group, and it's always a pleasure to get together with them to talk about Scotland's budget.
The draft Scottish budget for 2015-16 was published on October 9th, and the SWBG convened an open meeting to discuss it that took place on Tuesday. Participants heard from Leaza McSorley on Scotland's economy, Emily Thomson on feminist economics, and Angela O'Hagan on gender budgeting, before digging in to the budget itself.
Smith Commission: problems and possibilities for women's equality
The Smith Commission website is as spare as a fledgling campaign website. It serves as an indicator of the hasty birth of the Commission itself; set up in a scramble following the independence referendum No vote.
Smith's purpose can't easily be aligned with its timescale. After a season of weighing the possibilities of independence, in which participation has flourished across Scotland, the brevity of the Commission's timetable means a return to the old ways. The political parties have already made their submissions, and civil society has only another couple of weeks to contemplate the powers it would see transferred to Holyrood and make its case. Awkwardly, the deadline for civil society submissions is the same as the date that the UK Government command paper will be published.
RSSDownloads
Engender Briefing: Pension Credit Entitlement Changes
From 15 May 2019, new changes will be introduced which will require couples where one partner has reached state pension age and one has not (‘mixed age couples’) to claim universal credit (UC) instead of Pension Credit.
Engender Parliamentary Briefing: Condemnation of Misogyny, Racism, Harassment and Sexism
Engender welcomes this Scottish Parliament Debate on Condemnation of Misogyny, Racism, Harassment and Sexism and the opportunity to raise awareness of the ways in which women in Scotland’s inequality contributes to gender-based violence.
Gender Matters in Social Security: Individual Payments of Universal Credit
A paper calling on the Scottish Government to automatically split payments of Universal Credit between couples, once this power is devolved to the Scottish Parliament.
Gender Matters Manifesto: Twenty for 2016
This manifesto sets out measures that, with political will, can be taken over the next parliamentary term in pursuit of these goals.
Scottish NGO Briefing for UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women
Joint briefing paper for the UN Rapporteur on Violence Against Women.
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