Information about your dealings with Stonewall [Extraneous material removed]

The request was successful.

Dear Executive Office (Northern Ireland),
This is a request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA). Please provide any information that you hold answering to any of the following descriptions:

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. Any other communication you have received from Stonewall in 2019 or 2020 unless privileged or otherwise exempt from disclosure (but if you claim privilege or exemption in relation to any material, please say in broad terms what the material is and the basis on which you claim to be entitled to withhold it).

4. 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).

5. 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.

6. Whether you intend to continue your membership of any Stonewall scheme in the future, and if so which.

Yours faithfully,

U. Winfield

TEO Equality and Human Rights, Executive Office (Northern Ireland)

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    TEO FOI Acknowledgement Letter with privacy statement to U Winfield.docx

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U Winfield ,

Please see attached acknowledgement letter.

Thanks

Alison

Equality,Human Rights and Delivering Social Change Unit
5th Floor
Castle Buildings
Stormont

02890765664

Courtney, Paul, Executive Office (Northern Ireland)

Nil for Ebrington
Paul

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Courtney, Paul, Executive Office (Northern Ireland)

Courtney, Paul would like to recall the message, "Freedom of Information request - Information about your dealings with Stonewall #DontSubmitToStonewall".

TEO Equality and Human Rights, Executive Office (Northern Ireland)

3 Attachments

U Winfield ,

Please see attached response letter.

Thanks

Alison

Equality,Human Rights and Delivering Social Change Unit 5th Floor Castle Buildings Stormont

02890765664

Dear TEO Equality and Human Rights,

Thank you for your reply to my Q1. I have no way of knowing what was included in the documents or correspondence which I asked for in Q2, Q3 and Q4, so I will not pursue them. But I am puzzled about your reply to Q5: surely the NI Executive Office received an invoice in its own name from Stonewall, so the amount(s) paid to Stonewall in 2019 and 2020 (if applicable) should be freely available, I think.

I note your answer to Q6.

Can you please reconsider Q5?
Thank you.

Yours sincerely,

U. Winfield

TEO Equality and Human Rights, Executive Office (Northern Ireland)

U Winfield,

Thank you for your email please see response below from our Finance team with regard to question 5 of your original FOI request.

"The Accounts team in Finance branch have looked at question 5 - there were no payments made to Stonewall in 2019 and 2020. "

Thank You

Alison Miskimmin

Dear Executive Office (Northern Ireland),

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Executive Office (Northern Ireland)'s handling of my FOI request 'Information about your dealings with Stonewall #DontSubmitToStonewall'.

The Executive Office (Northern Ireland) was a member of Stonewall's Workplace Equality Index in 2020: an e-mail dated 14th December 2020 from Stonewall discussed "What's changed in 2020".

Yet the answer given to Q5 ("5. 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.") is: "There were no payments to Stonewall in 2019 and 2020". Was an advance payment for membership covering several years made sometime before 2019? Or does TEO still owe money for previous years? These are the only explanations which I can think of. There must have been a payment or payment is owing for 2020 membership. Can you please investigate when payment was made and how much?

Thank you.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/i...

Yours faithfully,

U. Winfield

TEO Equality and Human Rights, Executive Office (Northern Ireland)

U Winfield,

Thank you for your latest message. We would like take this opportunity
clarify the previous answer given before considering any review
procedures.

You had asked for “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”. As a Department The Executive Office has not paid any money
to Stonewall however, the Department of Finance (NICSHR) engage with
Stonewall on behalf of the whole Northern Ireland Civil Service (NICS)
and are therefore responsible for all payments. If you wish to obtain this
information from DOF you can contact them by email: [1][email address]

Hopefully this will address any queries on our response , if you still
wish to proceed with an internal review please contact TEO FOI
[2][Executive Office request email].

Thank you

Alison Miskimmin

Equality,Human Rights and Delivering Social Change Unit

5^th Floor

Castle Buildings

Stormont

02890765664

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Dear Ms Miskimim, TEO Equality and Human Rights,

Thank you for sorting that out for me. Another FoI to do!

Yours sincerely,

U. Winfield