cathedral school job.

[geoffrey]

I note that a cathedral is advertising for a female member of teaching staff for its all-boys choir school. It is pointed out in the advertising that a female is required as they must have a female on the staff and all the others are male. The young lady who pointed this out to me is not interested in the job but is this legal? If son does an all-girls school have to have e male on its staff? It seems very peculiar to me.

[vanman]

Re: cathedral school job.

The Sex Discrimination Act (SDA) makes it unlawful for an employer to discriminate because of a person's sex or marital status when appointing someone to a post:

• in the arrangements made for deciding who should be offered the job (see below)
• in relation to any terms offered, such as pay, holidays, or working conditions
• by rejecting an applicant or by deliberately avoiding consideration of an applicant.

The 'arrangements' for deciding who should be offered a job include:

• the job description
• the person specification, which is an assessment of the essential skills, experience and qualifications required to carry out the job
• the advertisement (this includes staff notices and circulars, jobs advertised in shop windows, as well as newspapers and magazines, the internet, TV and radio)
• the application form
• short listing
• the interview
• final selection.

The Sex Discrimination Act

• covers a broad range of workers including contract workers
• applies regardless of length of service in employment or the numbers of hours worked
• allows you to take a case to an employment tribunal. If your case is successful, you will receive
• compensation for any financial loss you have suffered; an award for injury to feelings can also be made.

The types of unlawful discrimination under the SDA are:

• direct sex discrimination is less favourable treatment of a woman than a man (or vice versa) because of her sex, for example refusing to consider women for a lorry driver's job because of her sex.
• direct marriage discrimination is less favourable treatment of a married person compared to a single person of the same sex, for example, having a policy of not employing married women.
• indirect sex discrimination occurs when an employer applies a provision, criterion or practice equally to both women and men but which puts or would put women at a particular disadvantage when compared to men (or vice versa) and which the employer cannot show to be a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. An example of this might be where an employer applies a provision that all job applicants must have been previously employed by the Armed Forces; as women have not traditionally worked in the Armed Forces in the same numbers as men, fewer women than men would be eligible to apply and so women would be put at a disadvantage.
• Indirect marriage discrimination occurs when an employer applies a provision, criterion or practice equally to both married women and single women (or married men and single men) but which puts or would put married persons at a particular disadvantage when compared to single persons of the same sex and which the employer cannot show to be a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. An example of this might be a provision that applicants for promotion must be prepared to relocate to a different part of the country. As fewer married women than single women are mobile (and also, arguably, fewer married men than single men), this may be unlawful indirect marriage discrimination, unless the employer could show that mobility was a valid and necessary function of the job and was thus a proportionate means of achieving a legtimate aim.
• victimisation occurs if you are treated less favourably compared to others because you acted in good faith to assert your rights under the SDA or the Equal Pay Act. For instance you may have a victimisation claim if you can show that you were not promoted because you had previously complained about equal pay with a male colleague.

Exceptions to the SDA

In certain limited circumstances it is lawful to discriminate in recruitment, training, promotion and transfer in a job for which the sex of the worker is a genuine occupational qualification (GOQ). The SDA allows an employer to restrict applications for a vacancy to women (or men) if the essential nature of the job, or particular duties attached to the job, calls for a woman (or a man).
GOQ's can only be claimed in relation to:

• physiology (excluding physical strength and stamina) - for example, a female model for women's clothes
• privacy and decency - for example, a male care assistant whose job involves helping men dress or use the toilet
• certain work in private homes - for example, a live-in carer
• single sex accommodation - for example, working on board a submarine
• single sex establishments - can only be claimed when the job holder has to live in the premises provided, which are normally occupied by persons of one sex and there is no separate sleeping accommodation for persons of the opposite sex
• personal welfare or educational services - for example, a female counsellor in a rape crisis centre
• jobs outside the UK in a country whose laws or customs are such that the job can only effectively be done by a man
• the employment of married couples - for example, residential posts of female warden and male caretaker.

An employer cannot claim that a GOQ applies if there are enough other members of staff of the appropriate sex to cover the duties in question. For example, it would be unlawful for an employer to restrict a vacancy in a clothes shop to women on the grounds that part of the duties involved assisting in the changing room, if there were enough women sales assistants already employed to cover that aspect of the job.
http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/y...t-the-law-says

[Johnboy007]

Re: cathedral school job.

It could also be argued that by employing all male staff, the Cathedral are showing sex discrimination.
The job description needs to be studied in detail, to clarify the situation.
Personally, I think employing a female member of staff is in order.

[vanman]

Re: cathedral school job.

It could also be argued that by employing all male staff, the Cathedral are showing sex discrimination.

well john there lies the problem if the male is better qualified than the female

you have to employ the female to show that your firm is not showing sex discrimination.

is that not sex discrimination in itself :colbert:

[Johnboy007]

Re: cathedral school job.

well john there lies the problem if the male is better qualified than the female

you have to employ the female to show that your firm is not showing sex discrimination.

is that not sex discrimination in itself :colbert:

But as this has not been shown in this case, it is an inadmissible statement, based merely on an assumption.
:tinysmile_twink_t2:

[vanman]

Re: cathedral school job.

But as this has not been shown in this case,
:tinysmile_twink_t2:

but john the OP says

]I note that a cathedral is advertising for a female member of teaching staff for its all-boys choir school[/COLOR]. It is pointed out in the advertising that a female is required as they must have a female on the staff and all the others are male. .

[Johnboy007]

Re: cathedral school job.

Hi vanman,
The problem we all got, is that the Cathedral doesn't say why they have to have a female member of staff....
:tinysmile_grin_t: