Nursery nurses sexual orientation

Wednesday, October 29, 2003

Nursery nurses working for Aberdeen city council are to be asked about their sexual orientation as part of a council-wide survey of employees. Aberdeen has issued the survey to its 11,000 staff, including nursery workers, to encourage them to disclose whether they are gay, lesbian, heterosexual, bisexual or transgender. The council said the survey was necessary to comply with European law. There is already legislation in place to protect employees from discrimination on grounds of sex, race and disability, which requires employers to produce statistics on the ethnic mix of the workforce. Critics of the survey said it was intrusive for employees and was a waste of council resources. However, the council said that staff could always select the 'no declaration' option if they did not want to disclose their private affairs.