The Women's National Commission was established in 1969 to act as the official independent advisory body on women in Government

WNC BACKGROUND BRIEFING

May 2007The Commission

1. The Women's National Commission was established in 1969 to act as the official independent advisory body on women in Government. Its remit is to `ensure that, by all possible means, the informed opinions of women are given their due weight in the deliberations of Government.' Unlike the Equal Opportunities Commission, it is an advisory non-departmental public body (NDPB), sponsored by the Women and Equality Unit. As such it is funded by Government and staffed by civil servants, but its work programme is agreed between the Minister for Women and the Chair of the WNC, and it operates independently from Government. This means that WNC acts as a bridge between Government and women's organisations, and groups working for women's equality, such as trade unions. Its work programme is driven partly by requests from Government for advice, and partly by the sector it is representing.

The Chair and Commissioners

2. Until 1999, the Chair and an Executive were elected by the WNC's 50 member organisations. A Government minister acted as co-chair, in order to represent WNC's views within Government. Following a review of the WNC the following changes were implemented:

The role of Government co-chair was abolished, in recognition of the establishment of a Minister for Women within Cabinet, with responsibility for the WNC.
The Chair and Executive (now renamed the Board of Commissioners) are no longer elective posts. This was partly in recognition of the extension of the Nolan rules on public appointments to advisory NDPBs, which specify the need for such posts to be filled by open competition; and partly because the elections were limited to an electoral college of 50 women's organisations, which restricted the field. With the lifting of the limit of 50 organisations as the WNC's membership, organising elections became logistically difficult. At the same time, the Chair now receives an honorarium, to encourage applicants who might not otherwise be able to afford to apply. The Commissioners are not paid, but expenses are reimbursed.

3. The Chair and Commissioners are drawn from civil society and give the WNC its strategic direction and its public face. Together they represent the views of the women's lobby.

4. The Commissioners include representatives of key parts of the women's movement. The aim is to draw appointees from the following areas:

The largest women's organisations e.g. WI, Townswomen's Guild
The trade unions
Campaigning organisations e.g. Fawcett
Violence groups
Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland (We have reserved seats for these Commissioners)
Women from ethnic and other minorities protected from discrimination eg disabled women, lesbians, transsexual women and women from faith communities.
The main political parties
Grassroots organisations

We now have seven Commissioners. Their role is to give expert advice to the Chair and to lead specific projects, as well as oversee the WNC strategy, work programme, and accounts. Where a gap in expertise or representation exists, the Chair may co-opt one or two additional members on a short-term basis. Commissioners are normally appointed on a two-year term and around one-third are re-appointed each year. Previous Commissioner projects have included:

Jane Esuantsiwa Goldsmith led a strategy review of WNC in 2005. This developed, in consultation with partners, a strategic plan for WNC for the next three years (2005-8).
Baroness Gale has led two events per year for Welsh partners and accompanies the WNC Chair, together with a delegation of partners, to meet the Welsh Equalities Minister every year.
Northern Ireland Commissioners Ann Hope (of the Irish TUC) and Barbara Erwin held open meetings with NI partners and organised a conference in Belfast for the Minister for Europe, Denis MacShane. They also facilitated a meeting between Peter Hain and Northern Ireland Women's Organisations
Mandana Hendessi and Farkhanda Chaudhry played a leading role in the Iraqi Women's internship Project and the Muslim Women's Network. Mandana Hendessi also chaired the Migration and Asylum Group.
Nicola Harwin and Professor Liz Kelly have, successively, chaired the Violence Against Women Group.
Anne Weyman chaired WNC's FGM group for several years. This brought the small grassroots community groups together with the larger child protection agencies for the first time in one forum, and engaged successfully with the Home Office to get the face of the FGM Bill changed.

5. The role of Chair on these working groups is key to their success and relies on the personal authority of the individuals, their expertise in the issue, and their willingness to give a considerable amount of voluntary time to the work. This includes, besides chairing the meetings themselves, oversight of the policy issues, providing a strategic steer to the group and to WNC staff, ensuring that discussion is open, inclusive and reflective of the authentic voices of women's organisations who lead in the field. The Chair is the main channel of advice to Government via reports, letters and by leading delegations to ministers and meeting officials. Together this can add up to between 40-50 days per year in the most active groups, rather than the maximum of 12 that Commissioners are asked to give.

The Directorate

6. The Directorate consists of a small team of civil servants and interns headed by the Director, who takes her strategic direction from the Chair. She manages an annual budget of £330,000 (06/07).

Links with Government

7. The Minister for Women sponsors the WNC. She is invited to attend the WNC's open meetings for all its organisations. She has quarterly meetings with the Chair. The Director of the Women and Equality Unit is also the civil service line manager of the Directorate staff, although they take their day to day direction from the Chair. The Director of the WNC has regular accountability meetings with the WEU, to report progress against the work programme, and expenditure against the budget. The WNC is based in the Department for Communities and Local Government alongside WEU. The Minister for Women, Ruth Kelly and the junior Minister for Women, Meg Munn, are based in DCLG.

WNC Affiliated Organisations

8. Until the review in 1999, the WNC conferred full membership status on 50 organisations and affiliated status on a further 30. Only national groups of at least five years' standing were eligible. Members were: consulted on Government initiatives via a comprehensive weekly written Briefing; able to elect the Chair and Executive from their number; and asked to attend quarterly plenary meetings at which resolutions could be voted upon, although more usually informal consensus was reached.

9. Following the Government review, all bona fide women's groups are eligible to apply for Partnership, as well as individual experts, such as academics and women's equality officers. The WNC's representation is increasing in line with Ministers' wishes. We now have 500 member organisations representing a wide range of groups. We particularly aim to include representatives of all six strands of discrimination within our partnership base.

Work Programme

10. The WNC's work divides into specific projects on core issues and ongoing tasks.

Ongoing tasks

Communication and support: maintenance of WNC website; maintenance of partner database; production of bi-monthly newsletter; ad hoc mailings; regular briefing/consultation meetings; open meetings for all partners every two years; support for our working groups; support for the Chair and the Commissioners, including quarterly meetings; support for partner organisations; routine correspondence; issue of publications etc.
United Nations: regular reporting to UN under UK's international obligations (CEDAW, Platform for Action, CSW). For example, in 2001, WNC organised a side event at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women on Female Genital Mutilation using UK experts from the VAW group. In 2005, the WNC side event was 1325 on trial: a tribunal investigating the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 and highlighting the role of men and was aimed at examining progress made since the passing of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 in October 2000. This Resolution was intended to provide a framework within which women could play a larger role in dealing with conflict situations and peace-building.
The report of the side event was widely used by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and the Women and Equality Unit. In 2007, WNC organised a side event on global indicators on VAW led by Commissioner Liz Kelly and UN Special Rapporteur Yakin Erturk.
International links: liaison with the European Women's Lobby and other international groups; working with the FCO and the British Council's programme for overseas Governments to visit the UK; liaison with the Council of Europe.
Governmental Work: producing regular budget and planning reports; assisting with responses to Parliamentary Questions; contributing to Departmental initiatives; providing advice to Government Departments on the Gender Equality Duty; publishing an annual business report.
Honours / Public Appointments: The WNC submits nominations to the Honours lists twice a year. Information is gathered and citations are prepared setting out the achievement and personal details of some half dozen women for each list. This contributes to the Cabinet Office's `Honouring Women' campaign to redress the imbalance in the numbers of women receiving honours, especially at the higher levels.
Outreach: The WNC's partnership base has increased by 900%. The aim has been to increase the partnership base in order to make the WNC as representative as possible. This has been done through multiple strategies of targeting diverse groups under the equality strands, but also increasing regional representation. There is still some way to go, however, for the representation we would like.

Current Issues

11. The WNC identifies its key issues in consultation with its partners. An open conference for partners held in December 1999 identified a small number of specific areas on which women's organisations want to see progress. These priorities were reconfirmed by three further open meetings held in 2002, and again at the end of 2004 and 2006. These are:

Pay, Employment and Pensions

12. This work is largely being led by the TUC and EOC. Further work, supporting the lead partners, is being done on an ad hoc basis; for example, in 2002 we arranged a briefing for parliamentarians with Julie Mellor as the key speaker. The EOC is currently working on the Gender Equality Duty which came into force in April 2007. The TUC is currently focussing on numerous projects including the gender pay gap. Fawcett and Age Concern are two of the leading organisations on pensions who have been running an effective joint campaign for some time. To compliment and support their work, we began a short consultation on the pensions system in December 2003, sending a questionnaire to all WNC partners. We produced a report from the responses, in the spring of 2004. Margaret Prosser chaired a year long Women and Work Commission to consider practical ways to close the gender pay gap, in April 2007 “Towards a Fairer Future” the report implementing the Women and Work Commission's recommendations was published to which WNC contributed.

CEDAW and Commission for the Status of Women

13. The WNC has been involved in the UK Shadow Report on the UN Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), which is submitted to the UN in parallel with the UK State Report, every four years. The UN CEDAW Committee relies on shadow reports to inform its examination of the UK government's progress in implementing its obligations under CEDAW. The WNC Chair is usually called by the Committee to give evidence during such periodic examinations. The WNC disbanded its International Team of two staff in 2006 due to budgetary constraints.

The WNC continues to discharge its duties on CEDAW by undertaking its own consultation with women's groups on an ad hoc basis in advance of each CEDAW examination. The work on 1325 has been taken on by the WNC's own 1325 sub-committee which has reconstituted itself as an independent group.

Gender Equality Duty and Commission for Equalities and Human Rights

14. At the WNC All Partners Conference, engaging with the new Commission for Equalities and Human Rights (CEHR) and the implementation of the Gender Equality Duty (GED) were both mentioned as priorities for the work of the WNC. The WNC is committed to working closely with the CEHR. The Gender Equality Duty [GED] came into force in April 2007 and it requires public authorities to promote gender equality and eliminate sex discrimination. Instead of depending on individuals making complaints about sex discrimination, the duty places the legal responsibility on public authorities to demonstrate that they treat men and women fairly. The duty will affect policy making, public services, such as transport, and employment practices such as recruitment and flexible working and is the most radical change to sex discrimination law in 30 years. Attendees at the conference highlighted that it should be a priority for the WNC to track how the GED will affect single-sex services and how we can encourage those not covered by the duty to implement it voluntarily.

Women in Public Life

15. Another priority identified for the WNC conference was women in Public Life. The need to increase representation as key decision-takers and key-influencers was highlighted and it was agreed that barriers to women entering public life should be tackled to create a more level playing field.

Violence Against Women

16. We convene a working group of academics, service providers and activists on this issue. We liaise regularly with key Ministers and government officials, particularly from the Home Office. The group is currently calling for a comprehensive strategy on Violence Against Women to be implemented by Government(s). A Commissioner acts as Chair of the WNC Violence Against Women Working Group.

17. In 2005, group members decided to lobby the Government to adopt a strategy on violence against women. As this went somewhat beyond WNC's advisory remit, the End Violence Against Women Campaign (EVAW) was established as an independent organisation and is supported separately from WNC by Amnesty UK. Amnesty UK fund a campaign manager and all EVAW activities, including its annual audit of Government's strategic work on VAW, Making the Grade. The WNC works as a member of the campaign and its role is to support and facilitate Government responses to the audit process by working with Departments to advise them on their responses. The WNC also works with EVAW, whose experts score the Government responses, to moderate the scoring. Making the Grade represents the informed opinion of women in the independent VAW sector. After the publication of Making the Grade 2006 EVAW took sole responsibility for the publication and Making the Grade 2007 is due in November.

Ongoing Working Groups

18. We now support:

Violence Group (Chair: Liz Kelly)

Sexual Violence Subgroup (Chair: Liz Kelly)

Domestic Violence Subgroup (Chair: Hanana Siddiqui and Nicola Harwin)

Migration and Asylum Subgroup (Chair: Mandana Hendessi)

Muslim Women's Network (Chair Haleh Afshar)

Women and Human Rights E- Network

WNC current projects include:

Iraqi Women's Internship Programme. 10 women spent eight weeks (six in the UK and two in Canada) analysing how women influence public policy in two democracies, and being trained as trainers to cascade what they have learned to 600 women in Iraq. Work to obtain further funds has been suspended until the completion of the review of the WNC
Commission on Equality and Human Rights (CEHR). The WNC has been invited to join the Equality and Diversity Forum, the NGO umbrella group for equality organisations across all six equality strands. Its main function is to bring the equality sector together to engage collectively with the new CEHR. The WNC plays an active role, feeding in the results of a number of consultations it has undertaken with women's organisations.
Preparation of the UK alternative report on CEDAW, to be published in July 2007.

A Muslim Women's Network which following the 2006 Listening to Muslim Women events which took place across England launched it's report, `She Who Disputes' in December 2006. This year we are hoping to work with the Department of Health in order to perform a listening exercise across the UK about Muslim women's health. The WNC is therefore supporting the Network's move to independence with external funding over the next year.
A Migration and Asylum Group which brings together academics and service providers in the normal way. The Group have had specific input to the new points-based consultation system, issues around the lack of natal care for women with no recourse and reactive issues around trafficked women with no recourse.

WNC previous projects include:

The Gender Expert Group on Trade (transferred to DTI in 2006). This group was set up at the request of the Minster for Women in 2003. It was made up of academics, and activists, the TUC and the larger women's organisations. It gave advice to DTI on such issues as the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS); Core Labour Standards; and gender impact analysis.
The WNC disbanded its International Team of two staff in 2006 due to budgetary constraints. The WNC continues to discharge its duties on CEDAW by undertaking its own consultation with women's groups on an ad hoc basis in advance of each CEDAW examination. This group worked on the production of the UK Shadow Report on the UN Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). The UN CEDAW Committee relies on shadow reports to inform its examination of the UK government's progress in implementing its obligations under CEDAW.
Women in Public Life. The WNC worked at the request of the Minster for Women with the WEU in 2002 - 04 to increase the number of women in public appointments. The WNC took part in a ministerial road show to promote public appointments to women. The work ended in 2004 due to budgetary constraints however, the WNC published and updated the `Women in Public Life Today - A Revised Guide'.

Beyond the WNC priorities, the Director undertook additional work as follows:

Member of the Board of Directors of the Women's Budget Group;
Member of the Lottery Fund Equality Forum;
Member, ACPO Women and Policing Group.

Strategic Direction

19. The Chair, with advice from the Commissioners, sets the strategic direction for the WNC. In so doing they consider the following issues:

The balance between reflecting the disparate views of our organisations to Government, and driving the agenda ourselves.
The balance between the need to provide Government with advice on its initiatives, and the need to reflect actively NGOs' priorities.
The need to increase diverse and grassroots involvement as well as to maintain links with the key organisations.
The flexibility to react opportunistically to `quick wins' while building the long term capacity of women's organisations to engage with public policy.
A strategic review was carried out in 2004. Two key strategic aims were approved: to effectively influence the political agenda on issues of importance and relevance to women, and to develop and actively engage a wide-ranging, diverse and representative membership.

Communications

20. We need to raise our profile, and to achieve the confidence of both women's organisations and the Government that our advice is considered and independent, and that our media profile supports this. Our budget was cut by one-third in April 2002, and as a result we lost our press officer, and have been unable to obtain support from the Departmental Press Office. We need to develop our own strategy for handling the press and media contact more positively and proactively. As a part of Government, we need to be seen to give independent advice without being used as a stick to beat the Government with. NGOs must be confident that we will speak clearly about their concerns. At the same time we must recognise that we are an advisory, rather than a lobbying group.

We have therefore taken the following approach:

To target key groups and opinion formers rather than the population at large, including the organisations we represent, Parliament and Government, so that they understand and value our work
To do this through public events which attract publicity, by regular briefings to MPs on key issues, and by operating in collaboration with some of the key NGOs
To improve the impact of our newsletter and widen its audience, with the aim of making it valued by those who receive it as a useful source of information.

Involving NGOs

21. Gaining the confidence of NGOs that the WNC can represent their views effectively is key to our success. We aim to achieve this by:

The Chair and Commissioners acting as the public face of the WNC, undertaking speaking engagements, meeting the media and acting as ambassadors both to Government, to women's organisations and more widely where opportunities arise.
Directorate staff support women's organisations in their contact with Government and as Partners.
We hold events for key stakeholders (parliamentarians, partners, and other women's groups) to secure commitment and awareness.
We invite a wide range of groups to become Partners, through our Commissioners and Outreach Manager.

Current concerns

22. Key and continuing concerns arise over funding. Following the cut in funding, we have reduced the number of permanent staff. Extra resources have been obtained via:

Unpaid internships
Working on projects in partnership with other organisations who share the cost;
Unpaid placement of Hansard exchange scholars and interns from the Poppy Project
Sponsorship of key projects by other parts of Government, e.g. DFID funds our Iraqi Women's Internship Project.
Home Office funding for the Muslim Women's Network consultation exercise

WNC, May 2007

Women's National Commission