Morning firesafety

I assume that most organisations will be avoiding taking knee jerk decisions on the basis of this judgment and will wait to see the changes to guidance to be published by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission.

However, there has been a trend over at least two decades towards including more unisex toilets in facilities, even if those have tended to be those designed for disabled users - though often not designated only for use by the disabled.

The Everton toilets will have been completed in accordance with Approved Document T (October 2024) which like all other guidance is not retrospective on existing workplace provision.

Toilet & changing facilities have and will remain a contentious issue given HR spent decades and reams of paper picking the easy route.

Most companies will be awaiting the raft of consulatnt guidance cascading from this decision before comitting anything in writing.

The document mentioned-Requirement T1: Toilet accommodation,  describes how toilets should be designed and built but not how they should be used. It does refer to single sex toilets and states “The layout when entering, exiting and using a toilet room or cubicle should cater for the safety, privacy and dignity of users. Cubicle doors should only open into single-sex toilet accommodation” Following yesterday’s ruling we can now assume that  sex means biological sex, not self defined sex which is what the contentious Scottish legislation was implying.

What exactly has this got to do with health and safety?

Looking at the OP I wonder if 

The relevant legislation is the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992. Regulation 20, Sanitary conveniences, states:

1. Suitable and sufficient sanitary conveniences shall be provided at readily accessible places.
2. Without prejudice to the generality of paragraph (1), sanitary conveniences shall not be suitable unless -
   1. the rooms containing them are adequately ventilated and lit;
   2. they and the rooms containing them are kept in a clean and orderly condition; and
   3. separate rooms containing conveniences are provided for men and women except where and so far as each convenience is in a separate room the door of which is capable of being secured from inside.

Hi Kate

The very first prosecution report that I wrote as an HSE Inspector included charges for inadequate welfare arrangements.

However, to be honest, if the toilets and washing facilities had been fit for purpose I wouldn't have been particularly bothered about which sex was to use them.

....and perhaps strangely, nobody suggested that as a male HSE Inspector that I shouldn't be looking at what the facilities were like when they were clearly designated for use by women only. Someone from management would check that a woman's dignity was not about to be compromised but nothing in Section 20 of the HSWA restricted my powers of entry to NOT cover facilities for the other sex. 

Then when I moved out of HSE and it came to recruiting there came the time when we were looking to add to our team. One structural engineer asked me a question:

"Have you found someone yet?"

"Yes"

"What's his name?" - this person should probably have known better.

"HER name if X and HER name if Y".

"But they will have to inspect constuction sites?"

"Yes, what's the problem?"

"Well sometimes the toilets are, you know, a bit bog standard."

"Well they shouldn't be and if a woman finds them like that, perhaps the Contractor will be even more embarrassed than if I tell them this."

I doubt that this Supreme Court ruling is going to cause many problems except for organisations that can't keep up with the times.

There will be a few women objecting to a transwoman using their facilities (and vice versa for the men) and employers can deal with that, if necessary asking the trans people to use the disabled loos.

However, if the trans person has been integrated into the workforce, I imagine that the complaints will be limited, particularly once things settle down.