Policy & Practice: Soapbox - Service providers must monitor forsexual orientation

The thorny issue of monitoring is something that Stonewall confronts repeatedly across public services. Service providers, ranging from the police to the NHS, are slowly beginning to recognise that understanding the nature of the individuals they serve is essential to the delivery of world-class public services.

As we move beyond a century of one-size-fits-all service provision, gay people should not be left behind. Hodge claims monitoring may be "intrusive".

It is a claim made often, not only by those who oppose better service provision for gay people but by those who think they are doing good. It was an argument made for years against the monitoring of ethnicity. But the sensitivities that exist around the monitoring of sexual orientation, particularly that of young people, are challenges to be met rather than excuses for inaction.