Conscious of the urgent need to create a ‘more inclusive environment for its employees, members and other stakeholders’, former members of the Executive Committee of the Green Party of England and Wales, approached Diverse Matters consultants to conduct a comprehensive audit into Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.
The team of consultants acknowledged in their May 2022 audit that their work had been conducted ‘with a current backdrop of conflict regarding sex and gender’ (1.3 page 6).
It reported that ‘every participant interviewed or who took part in a focus group made comments about the negative impact of the conflict on the Party’.
Disappointingly, the account of their methodology provides no details as to how the 27 interviewees were selected, how they went about creating the 7 focus groups and who on the ‘Leadership Team’ they had briefing meetings with.
Given the complexity of the Green Party which is made up of 50000 volunteers dispersed across 304 Local Parties and 10 Regions, with two semi-detached bodies ( the Young Greens and the Association of Green Councillors), 7 Special Interest groups, 4 major instruments of governance and 47 employees, concerns have been raised as to the limited scope of this exercise.
The number of references to ‘employees’, for instance, as opposed to members of the Party, and in addition to scant references to what actually makes up our vibrant but somewhat disjointed Party, what can only be described as a fairly restricted audit – but with a rather long list of recommendations – could well prove to be of little assistance to those now finally tasked to seeking a resolution to the sex and gender conflict within the Party.
Nevertheless a comprehensive review of key internal documents was also undertaken.
The Green Light 