Plenty of post-its but no free lunch

By Claire Loneragan

Wednesday 18 February 2026 and I'm getting ready before dawn to go to the final regional consultation in Bristol organised by the Women's Resource Centre which describes itself as the umbrella organisation for the women's sector.

It's hard to be sure about the governance and funding for the WRC, but their intent is clear. They aim to be the voice of women's voluntary sector and community organisations, taking our observations and issues to funders and decision makers. This series of consultations is being run by WRC so that they can deliver their CEDAW shadow report which is used to measure the UK Government's progress on implementing CEDAW. It's a pretty big deal.

I'd noticed that for the Bristol consultation, WRC are working with Bristol Women's Voice, an organisation that opens its membership to all who self-identify as women.

Although the session doesn't kick off until 10:30, it's an early start for me because Bristol is a two-hour drive away and I just know parking will be a pain. It's not how I want to spend my day, but we can hardly complain that taxpayers' money is being spent on the wrong things if we don't engage with the organisations that are funded by and/or have the opportunity to influence the government.

As a Director of Women's Rights Network and lead coordinator of the Somerset and Dorset group, I have gathered up the evidence of what matters to our women both nationally and locally. We have been asked for anecdotal evidence, but WRN have gathered a lot of hard facts too and published reports on sexual assaults in hospitals and in leisure centres, as well as some of the discrimination women are subject to by the police.

I park in Cabot Circus shoppers' car park and walk 17 minutes (according to Google maps) to the Malcolm X Community Centre where the consultation is to be held. In the St Paul's area of Bristol, the community centre is cold and in serious need of redecoration. Chairs and tables are arranged in a rather-too-big room with dreadful acoustics, but I see a few friendly faces and make myself a cup of tea. A teabag in a paper cup. Using one of the 5 teaspoons provided for all the attendees to share but without any means of cleaning between uses. Nice.

The 20 or so attendees spread ourselves around the tables and jump with alarm when the fire door slams, which it does every time someone comes back from the toilet. I check them out before we start – clean, but only three of the four cubicles have a working lock, and I use the last of the paper hand towels. There is no hot water. I remind myself that this is one of just six consultation events on behalf of the UK women's sector and intended to surface all the issues for Wales and the West of England. This consultation will inform the UN assessment of the UK government's implementation of CEDAW. It's important.

The facilitator calls for our attention and we are warned to use respectful language before watching a three-minute animation purporting to explain CEDAW. It suggests the UN will fix everything if we tell them what's going wrong and say "CEDAW" a lot. We introduce ourselves and find that a lot of different organisations are represented – including Women's Rights Network, LGB Alliance, Children of Transitioners, Women's Aid, Feminists Against Antisemitism, SARSAS and, of course, Bristol Women's Voice.

The atmosphere is flat, and the organisers unenthusiastic. The vibe is not improved when the woman from Children of Transitioners explains how Bristol Women's Voice had dismissed concerns raised months ago about the complete lack of single-sex rape crisis provision in Bristol. She's clearly very upset by this and shares her paperwork with the WRC facilitator.

Then the work starts in earnest although it's by no means clear what the expected output is from each table. We have a pile of post-its that are "for later" and we're asked to write our local issues on small white rectangles of paper. After 30 minutes of discussion, each table reads out a few of the notes we have made and the facilitator records two or three comments from each table on her phone. The white rectangles of paper are set aside and not referred to again.

Despite everything, there are a lot of excellent points, including the struggles women face in rural areas with poor and expensive transport, the cost of childcare, that shocking lack of ANY single-sex rape crisis provision in Bristol (the nearest is London), council run leisure centres converting to mixed-sex changing villages, and the need to help women – particularly in rural areas – to escape prostitution by criminalising the men who buy sex rather than exploited women.

I talk briefly about the WRN reports and where to find them, but there's no interest in our findings, and no curiosity to follow up. Which is a shame because Women's Rights Network are properly grassroots and entirely voluntary. Our research is done in our own time, and the subject of our research is determined by our members, not by a government think-tank sponsored to deliver pet projects. We are entirely focussed on what ordinary women care about, and the discrimination ordinary women experience. Which is what I understood to be the purpose of this consultation.

One woman asks if it’s realistic to expect a government to fully implement CEDAW – which is ratified by the UK but not incorporated into UK law – when that same government won't even implement the Supreme Court ruling on the meaning of sex in the Equality Act. She gets a round of applause from most of the attendees, and scowls from the rest.

We have a tea break. Another paper cup but no clean teaspoons now. The two packs of biscuits that were provided are mostly eaten but I brought my own anyway. Smart move.

The second session is intended to link the local to the national issues, but there's no clarity as to how, or the appropriate level of detail. Being resourceful women, we do our best to identify national policy issues including the lack of appropriate accountability and the lack of any ombudsman so that complaints can be recorded and assessed. We note that the Public Sector Equality Duty is rarely adhered to and that nobody seems to understand what Equality Impact Assessments are for or how to write them.

The facilitator sits at our table as we discuss accountability and she puts forward the proposition that the main problem is that the commissioning system for services is too onerous for small organisations, whilst private companies such as those that run children's homes are largely unregulated. We discuss the idea that better regulation and reporting of outcomes would be a solution, but she insists that tearing down the whole commissioning process and starting from scratch is the only solution. And something about capitalism being a problem.

At the end of session readout the facilitator records a couple of key thoughts from each table on her phone. The feedback from our table is that that the whole commissioning system needs reforming. Which is a surprise. The phone recording feedback moves on before anything else can be added.

As a thank you for our time we were promised lunch but it's already lunch time and there's no hint of food. Not much of a thank you either. After a few minutes milling around I decide I'm not hungry enough to wait – I'd brought my own biscuits, after all. On my way out I hear one of the organisers from Bristol Women's Voice talking to caterers about the lack of lunch. She seems resigned to the fact that there won't be any.

Which pretty well sums up the day for me. I feel like I've been played. And I'd like to know what the post-its were for.