FOI Request - Gender & Sexuality
Request 101003912067
1. What your organisation understands the word ‘woman’1 to denote.
2. What your organisation understands the terms: lesbian, bisexual and gay to denote?
3. Actions that you have carried out for women (as defined by the Supreme Court ruling in the case of For Women Scotland v Scottish Ministers) in the last 5 years. Please break that down the amount spent by each calendar year, please provide by fiscal year if you do not have it in calendar format please include data for 2026.
4. Actions you have carried out for (each and separately) lesbian2, gay and bisexual people (each term as defined by the supreme court ruling in the case of For Women Scotland v Scottish Ministers) in the last 5 years? (please break that down by year, for the last 5 years and this calendar year) and only if achievable within cost limit, the action taken and the amount spent on each action.
5. Copies of any funding agreements, or contracts, or other documents held by your organisation in the last 5 years with any LGBT organisation or organisation that has LGBT+ issues as its main focus, specifying the purpose of the funding.
6. The total amount of spend in the last 5 years (from 2020 up to the present day) for grants, funding, donations, contracts, or any other financial support, membership fees or subscriptions to LGBT diversity schemes or programmes provided by your authority to organisations that work with lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, transgender, ace, pan or intersex people or any other related or associated equality issues.
1 On 16th April, 2025, in their ruling: ‘For Women Scotland Ltd vs The Scottish Ministers’, The Supreme Court concluded (at paragraph 264): “the words ‘sex’, ‘woman’ and ‘man… mean (and were always intended to mean) biological sex, biological woman and biological man.”
2 On 16th April, 2025, in their ruling: ‘For Women Scotland Ltd vs The Scottish Ministers’, The Supreme Court concluded (at paragraph 206) “a person with same sex orientation as a lesbian must be a female who is sexually oriented towards (or attracted to females, and lesbians as a group are females who share the characteristic of being sexually oriented towards females.”
7. A breakdown, where held, of this spend for each year from 2020/2025 to 2025/2026. Ideally, please provide by calendar year. Please provide by fiscal year if you do not have it in calendar format.
8. A breakdown, where held, of this funding by recipient organisation, including their name, amount provided for each year from 2020/2025 to 2025/6 and only if achievable within cost limit a brief description of what it was for (including, but not limited to: mental health support, equality training and education, awareness raising initiatives, youth projects, sport or health services)
Response 10-02-2026
1. Biological woman at birth
2. Lesbian - a biological woman who is romantically and/or sexually attracted to other biological women.
Gay - a biological man who’s romantically and/or sexually attracted to other biological men, although it can also be a broader term for anyone who’s attracted to the same gender.
Bisexual - someone who is romantically and/or sexually attracted to more than one gender.
3.& 4. The term 'actions' is very wide, and to search for information held across all Council services would, for the 5 years requested, take an estimated minimum of 1-3 hours per month, as we would have to look through all Policies and Agreements individually. This would take in excess of 40 hours, and this would cost the Council in excess of £600. In accordance with section 12 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002, excessive cost, we are therefore unable to comply with this request.
However, there is a variety of information published and available on the Moray Council website; please see below:
The following may be alternative, helpful to help sources of information:
Moray Council Equality Reports - http://www.moray.gov.uk/moray_standard/page_86092.html
Moray Council is an active partner of the Violence Against Women and Girls Partnership and contributes to their strategic goals and action plan delivery https://morayprotects.co.uk/about/ending-gender-based-violence/
Moray Council Integrated Impact Assessment process also identifies any impacts on women as a protected characteristic to help inform decision making - http://www.moray.gov.uk/moray_standard/page_55280.html
Moray Council Annual Accounts - http://www.moray.gov.uk/moray_standard/page_44100.html
5. Not held. Information that is not held falls under Section 17 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 - Information not held.
6. -8. Not applicable