A piece in today’s Times:
A company called Handymen UK was investigated by a council over gender discrimination after it applied for a grant to help it through the pandemic.
The property maintenance business had to explain to Penarth town council, in the Vale of Glamorgan, that it also employed women before it could be considered for the grant.
James Squire-Wood, 23, the owner, said he was shocked when a council report said that the company might not be approved for a £1,000 grant because of gender discrimination.
The report was published before the final decisions on grant applications are made at a council meeting this evening.
Under the application requests, the council report stated: “Handymen UK — No award on grounds of gender discrimination.” It offered no other detail.
Mr Squire-Wood said he believed that councillors took the “politically correct view” that its name was “dated” and discriminated against women.
He said he had not been contacted by the council before the report was published, though he had since spoken to officials.
“If they are to reject it, we’ll have to take it from there,” he said. “We don’t have any reason to not be eligible, so if the only grounds is gender discrimination then we’re going to have to defend ourselves.”
Liz Fahy, the councillor who chairs the task group making the recommendations, told The Times that the group had to make further inquiries into Handymen UK to ensure that it met council criteria on discrimination.
“We have got a set of criteria,”she said. “Sometimes businesses are asked for further information for clarification and we requested further information about the gender of their employees.
“Once that information was given they were still in the process of being assessed but they haven’t been turned down for a grant. The council meeting will decide on Thursday.”
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