women in london

The Government Equalities Office is consulting around women’s engagement with government and the new gender architecture that will replace the Women’s National Commission http://wrcnews.org.uk/4DW-EETQ-BQJQT-5L4CC-1/c.aspx. The consultation seeks to find appropriate ways for the government and Ministers to engage with individual women and women’s organisations but also businesses and other organisations that work with women, obviously informed by the cuts and austerity measures.

To view the GEO’s consultation document in full please go to their website here http://wrcnews.org.uk/4DW-EETQ-BQJQT-5KKGG-1/c.aspx.

Women’s Resource Centre have produced a briefing (http://www.wrc.org.uk/includes/documents/cm_docs/2011/g/geo_womens_voices_consultation_briefing.pdf) on the consultation with some initial areas of concern and will produce a template response for others to use.

WRC will also be hosting a consultation event on Friday 13th May at the Amnesty Human Rights Action Centre in London for the women’s sector to make recommendations on the proposals. The points made on the day will feed into a template consultation response for organisations and our own response. Find out more about the event and how to book a place here – http://www.wrc.org.uk/training_events/geo_consultation_may_2011.aspx

It is essential that as many organisations as possible are at this event so that the views of the women’s sector is correctly represented – this is a rare opportunity to influence the new gender architecture that will be developed by government to replace the WNC. There may be other consultation events going on locally or nationally which you can also get involved in.

You can also feed in to the WRC response through an online survey (http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/YQNBFBW). It is useful to know where organisations are based and all answers will be fed into the WRC response to give a more detailed picture of the opinions of the women’s sector in the UK. The deadline for responses to the survey is Monday 23rd May.

For more information about the WRC consultation and event contact charlotte@wrc.org.uk

Strengthening Women’s Voices in Government

Government Equalities Office consultation event Agenda

9:30 am Introduction and welcome
10:00 am Workshops
- Direct engagement
- Bringing in the expertise of women’s organisations
- Looking ahead
11:00 am Break
11:15 pm Workshops
- Direct engagement
- Bringing in the expertise of women’s organisations
- Looking ahead
12:15 pm Lunch
1.30pm Workshops
- Direct engagement
- Bringing in the expertise of women’s organisations
- Looking ahead
2:30pm Plenary on IT Platform
3:00pm Speaker from the GEO and Q&A
4:00pm Monitoring and evaluation and end