Changes to Gender in the Student Record

Dear Emma

Thank you for contacting HESA.

HESA collects a statistical Staff Record and Student Record from each HE institution in the UK. The data collected by HESA is not used to identify or affect individuals. On advice from the Equality Challenge Unit (ECU - the organisation responsible for advancing equality and diversity in further and higher education) both Staff and Student records for the 2012/13 academic year are being amended to reflect the requirements of the Equality Act 2010 and the Public Sector Equality Duty which falls on Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). The full advice and guidance originally provided by ECU is published here: http://www.hesa.ac.uk/index.php/content/....

The change in terminology of Gender to Sex is also being made to bring HESA into line with wider data standards used by, for example, the Census.

The phrase ‘legal’ sex is only currently used in the Staff Record. The intention in the Staff Record is to match the data requirements of HMRC, which for tax and pension purposes only accept Female or Male.

The final coding manual and guidance for the Student Record in 2012/13 has not been published. From your own and other queries about the provisional guidance and consultation documents it is clear that the terminology of ‘legal’ sex may not be appropriate for the Student Record.

Similarly the binary choice of Female or Male, originally intended to match the Staff Record, is now the subject of further discussion with regard to the Student Record.

HESA will take further advice from ECU on these matters and I will respond to this same address if there are any changes to the current draft HESA guidance to HEIs.

The following advice from ECU to HEIs has been updated today (see http://www.ecu.ac.uk/your-questions/how-...):

--- quoted text ---
Sex
• What is your sex?
o Male
o Female
• These categories reflect the requirements of the HESA staff record. HEIs may wish to adapt the question at an institutional level to include the options of 'Other' and 'Prefer not to say'. This will allow anyone who associate with the terms intersex, androgyne, intergender, ambigender, gender fluid, polygender and genderqueer to complete the question.
• The UK law only recognises two sexes: 'Male' and 'Female'. Therefore if an HEI only provides the 'Male' and 'Female' options, we recommend that they adapt the question to 'What is your legal sex?' This is the sex given on the person's birth certificate (note that this is not necessarily the same as their sex at birth).
• We recommend that HEIs ask sex and gender identity questions separately.
--- end quoted text ---

ECU recommended the addition of the GENDERID field to help HEIs and the HE funding bodies meet their non-discrimination and monitoring duties under the Equality Act. It is not compulsory for institutions to ask this question or to include this field in their HESA returns. If asked, answering the question will also be optional. By including GENDERID in the HESA record HEIs are provided with a standardised way of coding this information for their own equality monitoring purposes. If data is returned to HESA, sector wide statistics may be used for monitoring and benchmarking of Public Sector Equality Duty performance by HEIs and the wider HE sector.

Further research into the relationship between the Equality Act 2010 and the Gender Recognition Act 2004 is currently being undertaken by HESA to ensure that any future processing of gender identity data is lawful.

I hope this information explains the current situation, if you have any further questions please don’t hesitate to ask.

Kind regards

Simon

Simon Kemp
Press Officer and Data Protection Officer
Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA)
95 Promenade, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire GL50 1HZ
T 01242 211135  F 01242 211122  W www.hesa.ac.uk

View our Publications product catalogue (pdf)

_____________________________________________________________________

Try our free UK HE Stats iPhone app - http://www.hesa.ac.uk/iapp1
No iPhone? Use our mobile website - http://m.hesa.ac.uk/

show quoted sections

This outgoing email was virus scanned for HESA by MessageLabs.
_____________________________________________________________________

Dear Emma.

 

I would like to clarify that ECU recommends HEIs, and HESA, to include the
categories ‘Other’ and ‘Prefer not to say’ alongside ‘Male’ and Female’ as
responses to the question ‘What is your sex?’

 

Kind regards

 

Simon

 

Simon Kemp
Press Officer and Data Protection Officer
Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA)
95 Promenade, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire GL50 1HZ
T 01242 211135  F 01242 211122  W [1]www.hesa.ac.uk

 

[2]View our Publications product catalogue (pdf)

 

 

_____________________________________________________________________

Try our free UK HE Stats iPhone app - http://www.hesa.ac.uk/iapp1
No iPhone? Use our mobile website - http://m.hesa.ac.uk/

show quoted sections

This outgoing email was virus scanned for HESA by MessageLabs.
_____________________________________________________________________

References

Visible links
1. http://www.hesa.ac.uk/
2. http://www.hesa.ac.uk/dox/publications/2...