Jenna and Andrew, RIPA International Co-ordinators visit 11 Downing Street
June 01 2009
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We couldn’t believe our luck when we received the invitation. The Women’s Budget Group had invited us to attend a key conference at 11 Downing Street, London. This is the current residence of Rt Hon Alistair Darling MP, Chancellor of the Exchequer.
As programme co-ordinators, we help to organise training courses, we never expected that such an opportunity would arise whilst setting up a
Gender Mainstreaming course in May. It was during the preparation of this seminar that we developed our relationship with the Women’s Budget Group. The Group is an influential body that exists to monitor Government spending. Whilst talking to them they suggested that it might be very informative and worthwhile for us to attend their annual general conference. We couldn’t believe it when we saw the venue!
Downing Street must be the hardest Street to gain access to in London. We needed photographic evidence to get through the huge iron gates and had our bags scanned by security policemen-it was like being at an airport! Inside number 11, it was very grand and there were lots of very important women chatting in groups, Andrew felt very outnumbered as he was the only man!!
The conference took on the format of an ‘informal discussion’ between a journalist-Bea Campbell and a politician-Angela Eagle. Unfortunately, we cannot reveal who said what as we were under ‘Chatham house rules!’ After their discussion, the meeting opened up to the floor, the hot topic of the evening certainly centered around the gender pay-gap.
Sadly, our time at number 11 Downing Street had come to an end and it was time to leave. There was just time for one quick photo outside Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s front door before we left the gated street.
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