THEPOSITION IN 2002 AND IMPROVEMENT PROGRAMME.
Introduction.
I am Robyn Dasey,Assistant General Secretary of the FDA and Chair of the Council of CivilService Unions Equality Committee. Ithank you for the invitation to talk to you today about the position of womenin the civil service and actions necessary and being taken to improve this.
A little more about meand the unions I am representing. TheFDA represents what used to be called grade 7 and above and the fast-stream inthe civil service. Our sister unionsthe PCS and Prospect represent all other administrative grades andspecialists. In total our unionsrepresent more than 300,000 civil servants, more than half of whom are women.
The unions women membershave over the past 25 years become a vital constituency, a constituency whichnow demands equality on its own terms in employment and within unions. Collectively the negotiating agenda - thepay and rations on which we negotiate and the priorities afforded to them hasdecisively moved in the direction of interests prioritised by womenmembers. Individually, we advisesupport and represent women members with a wide range of discrimination andequality problems in their employment.
Overall, the unionsstrategy can be described as the following 3 strands:
Legislation Equal Pay, Sex Discrimination Act, EUDirectives etc.
Stressing interests of particular relevance towomen with employers through negotiation and consultation on a wide range ofaspects of pay and conditions of service;
Activities with and learning from the widercommunity eg maternity alliance, the parental leave campaign and the HansardSociety.
My talk today starts witha very brief overview of equality and diversity in the civil service then goeson to the barriers women face and actions to overcome these.
Government Policy.
Equality and diversityare one of 5 major strands in the Modernising Government and associated CivilService Reform Programme published in 1997/98.The Head of the Civil Service, supported by the now Civil ServiceManagement Board, is responsible directly to the Prime Minister to report sixmonthly on actions on this policy. Adiversity champion, Nick Montagu, Chair of the Inland Revenue, was appointed byCSMB to develop the initial thinking and to follow it through by championingthe issues particularly at the upper and middle levels of the civilservice. The policy identified a numberof overlapping strands: bringing in and bringing on talent; managerialcapability and accountability; corporate leadership; and work-life balance.
Targets for theproportion of underrepresented groups at various leadership levels provides afocus and a key indicator. Those ofparticular interest on women are that by 2005, 35% of the 3000 civil servantsin the Senior Civil Service should be women, and 25% of those in the top 600posts. Departments were also chargedwith setting targets at lower levels related to their specific circumstances. These are mostly at the Grade 7 and HEO(team managerial and policy) levels.
The Current Position.
Women are half of all civilservants. Their presence varies from71% in the Employment Service to 28% in the Prison Service. Two thirds of all women civil servants(155,330 women) are in the lowest AA and AO equivalent grades, compared with42% of men. Almost 1 in 4 women civilservants work part time. Thisproportion is the highest amongst AA and AO and EOs and equivalents but isalmost 18% also at grade 7.
There has been a gradual increaseof women in the Senior Civil Service from 17.8% in April 1998 to 22.5% inOctober 2000. In the top 600 posts, theproportion of women has increased from 1 in 8 in April 1998 to almost 1 in 5 inSeptember 2000. There is a very realrisk that these targets will not be met, which has given additional impetus tothe programmes described below.
Equal Pay.
In April 2000, 56% of all womencivil servants earned less than 15,000 per annum compared with 29% of malecivil servants. Women part timersearned even less - 63% were in jobs paying less than 15,000 at full timesalary rate. The contrast with theincomes of male civil servants who work part time is remarkable (table 3).
The key factors in womens lowerpay are:
They are concentrated in lower grades and lower paidjobs.
The very substantial proportion who work part time areeven more concentrated in lower grade lower paid jobs.
Many womens jobs rated as of equal value with mens arepaid less because the women are concentrated in administrative jobs whereas asubstantial proportion of the men are in technical and specialist jobs paidmore highly.
Incremental scales were abolished in 1992 to bereplaced by open pay ranges with no guaranteed means of progression withinthem. A higher proportion of menparticularly in the middle and higher grades had benefited from the incrementalscales and are at or near the maxima of the ranges. Thus there are many women hows jobs are rated as of equal valuewith male colleagues but whose salaries are, at grade 7 level, say 6000 lowerper annum, even where the women has achieved consistently higher performanceratings than the man. This isessentially the case Pat Crossley won against ACAS.
Civil service unions have beenarguing for equal pay audits and definitive guidance since 1995. The Cabinet Office has just produced thisand Ministers have instructed all departments and agencies to conduct an auditby April 2003. However, the Treasuryhas not provided additional money to pay for the rectification of the equal payproblems (ACAS had reduce posts in order to pay for theirs and the offer to the200 women in a similar position to Pat Crossley does not include all the backpay they could have won in tribunals).
Barriers and Issues for Womens Development.
Major barriers identified by ourmembers, the unions and in recent civil service surveys are
Promotion processes.
Appraisal systems.
Work/family balance.
Long hours of work.
Differential treatment of part timers
Qualitative work culture.
Promotion Processes.
More than half the respondents inthe Civil Service Diversity Survey 2001 stated that they did not believepromotion policies operated fairly or were based on individual merit. Comments included promotion goes to thosewhose face fits, we promote good talkers, not good achievers. This negative view was highest amongst thelowest grades with only 17% of AA and AOs believing that these processes werefair. 95% of this grade are women andmore than half of all women are in these grades.
Promotion was one of the topicsmost frequently mentioned in the open comments. The key factor was management perceptions of ones commitment tothe job over and above ones contract.Opportunities had often been felt to be unfairly restricted as a resultof working part time and therefore being perceived as placing familycommitments above work.
There is a real risk thatstereotypes about women and particularly women part time workers blinddepartments to the skills, qualifications, talent and potential they alreadyhave in the lower grades of their work force.
To my knowledge no department oragency has even undertaken a skills or qualifications audit of their staff.
The same diversity surveyreported that only 27% of civil servants agreed generally, employees areencouraged to use their different talents to the full. 43% disagreed. Those in the AA/AO grades were more disaffected than others.
Evaluations of the effectivenessof promotion procedures had been very patchy. Some of the most authoritativeanalysis are now more than 5 years old and, if any of these programmes have hadany impact, could not be assumed to hold today. Yet many departments and agencies have moved to self nominationand internal/open advertising of all posts on the basis that this was supposedto encourage a more diverse range of staff to apply. Many have also lifted grade restrictions on those who canapply. Others have removed theinfluence of direct line managers appraisals of promotability from the process.There needs to be serious evaluation of the effects if any of thesechanges. The debate is also wide spreadabout the equality and diversity impact of greater use of assessment centresfor promotion to key grades. This is aresource consuming exercise ripe for proper evaluation.
Performance Appraisal.
A joint CCSU/CabinetOffice/Departmental research project Equality in Performance ManagementSystems (2001) identified a whole range of qualitative problems in theimplementation of appraisal systems.Much of this concerns improvements in management capability rather thanformal policy or systems. Thestatistical survey of 13 major departments and agencies, found on gender, thatwomen were more likely to have higher performance appraisals in the grades inwhich they dominate, but lower appraisals than men in those in which mendominate. Some of the factors elicitedto explain this include women disproportionately remaining for longer period inlower grades, and therefore with longer experience achieving higher performanceratings (but this does not hold in every instance) and management appraisalsrun by women, where the management grade is also predominately women, showingmore positive attitudes to skills and incompetences in which women tend toexcel more than men and vice versa for grades in which male managersdominate. This has not however beenshown by evidential research.
Work/Family Balance.
The civil service provides a widevariety of alternative working patterns.The rapid growth in part time work, particularly for women and the sheerscale of it now is less known. Equallyif not more appreciated is the generally available flexi-time schemes. This provides for women working full time tofor example be available always in core hours from 10 to 12 and 2 to 4 but towork the rest of them in any time between say 8am and 6.30pm. This is most highly appreciated by staff asit for example enable one to drop off or pick up children and to copy with alot of small domestic tasks. Maternityleave is amongst the best in the UK: 18-26 weeks on full pay. There is also discretionary paid familyleave of up to 10 days per year for domestic emergencies.
However,
All civil service bodies have refused to implementparental leave beyond the statutory minimum.This it is not paid and administratively inflexible. Take up has been virtually zero.
Part timers are perceived as not interested in careersand in some instances excluded from training and developmental schemes becauseof difficulties arranging alternative timing and child care; implied to be anuisance because they insist on sticking to their hours; and limited intraining opportunities because attending them would mean they are away fromtheir desk for a large proportion of their working week.
Expectations of part timers are, they often complain,unrealistic and they have to work harder to prove themselves.
Longer maternity leave and career breaks, while clearlypreferable to resignation or a complete break in a womens career which wasprevalent in the 1980s, often leads to the women being held back on return andin effect forgotten whilst they are on the career breaks.
There is virtually no appreciation of the differentialneeds for flexibility at different times in ones life cycle. Part timers are perceived to be always parttime and have difficulty in resuming full time work.
Staff development programmes which require relocation,even relocation for example across London, can effectively exclude women whoare primary carers and most part time staff.
Less than half the Senior Civil Servants and futureSenior Civil Servants questioned by Schneider Ross in 1999 felt they couldbalance home and work without hindering their career progression.
Long Hours of Work.
More than half the womenquestioned by Schneider Ross agreed that working long hours is the only way toget into the Senior Civil Service (and almost all of them are already init). Two thirds identified preparednessto work long and additional hours as the highest enabler for success in theSCS.
More than one third of therespondents to the FDA/Prospect survey of Senior Civil Servants in 2001 saidthat they consistently worked more than 46 hours per week.
This strongest barrier to themore women achieving the highest levels has got to be broken down. This requires leadership from the very top,and will be assisted by ministerial intervention. Patricia Hewitt, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, hasinitiated with the DTI unions a comprehensive initiative to implement and changethe attitudes to more flexible working and reduce excessive working at seniorlevels. She has also written to otherMinisterial colleagues asking what they are doing about this issue. Reorganisation of ministerial offices couldfor example incorporate shift working of staff to begin to undermine theinculcation of long hours working which begins with fast-streamers workingridiculous hours in private offices, and then continues as tradition whenthey later are far more senior.
Qualitative Culture.
The major survey by consultantsSchneider-Ross on the under representation of women, ethnic minorities andpeople with disabilities in the Senior Civil Service, conducted in 1998, wastellingly entitled Succeeding in the Civil Service A Question of Culture. Culture is difficult to define and yetmany characteristics of it are easy to recognise. Features outlined in Schneider-Ross report include:
- The Senior Civil Service can be very comfortable,welcoming (indeed familiar), Those who come from an Oxbridge College, may notnotice much change.
- A particular sort of club.
- A very male culture.
- Everyone by surname on correspondence.
- No one is introduced at meetings. You have to always break in difficult asthe one women in a room full of men.
- Asian women are not ambitious.
- Everything has to be brilliant.
- Emotionally draining.
- I analysed how other women got on and adopted malenorms. I started blowing my owntrumpet.
- Late/late is more culturally acceptable thatearly/early.
- Its changing as younger men come through with workingwives, sharing domestic responsibilities.
- I challenged the prevailing office culture of 10 to7. I wasnt prepared to do that.
The culture obviously differsbetween departments, but many will recognise at least some of the above features,particularly in the upper corridors of power.Changing the culture is a major part of the diversity programme in theModernising Government agenda.
Key aspects to changing cultureinclude:
- More of the underrepresented groups, includingwomen, at senior levels, itself shift culture but that this is not enough isshown by the very slow progress of the last 30 years. Increasing numbers from underrepresented groups, while doingnothing about an overall organisational culture, can be quite counter productive. It may leave a backlash effect. Also, it makes life very unpleasant for manyof the under represented groups.
- A critical first step, the decision to fundamentallychange the culture, and to promulgate this decision frequently, has been takenby the Civil Service Management Board in recent years.
- Advocacy of the decision to embrace change hasbeen followed to a greater or lesser extent by explanations of the nature ofthe desired changes and why they matter.
- A change of this nature inevitably meets seriousopposition, which in the civil service context is as likely to be byprocrastination failure to allocate sufficient resources particularly of peoplewith energy, time and expertise and blocking in all sorts of minor ways ratherthan by outright refusal. This too needactive countering at all levels.
- The leadership and advocacy from Civil ServiceManagement Board, Permanent Secretaries, and senior Directors must also becomeembedded throughout the management chain.Accountability at all levels, through for example objectives andperformance management systems, is a crucial pillar in this process.
- Also critical is the tackling of the difficultissues and publicly being seen to do so.Such issues include working hours, alternative working patterns, andpromotion and appraisal systems. Thistoo is starting to be done.
Mentoring.
Isan example of a practical part of this programme. The Cabinet Office, jointly with departments has launched amentoring scheme called Elevator Partnerships. The pilot comprises about 50senior women. Departments haveidentified 3 or 4 junior women staff not already identified for careersuccession or in the fast stream.Neither grade nor age is a qualification or a barrier. Some departments and agencies have alsoestablished their own mentoring schemes.Evaluation of the effectiveness of these pilots should be shared acrossthe service to maximise the benefit.
1APRIL 2000
|
|
FULL TIME EQUIVALENT SALARIES |
|||||||
|
|
F/T STAFF |
P/T STAFF |
||||||
|
|
MALE |
FEMALE |
MALE |
FEMALE |
||||
SALARY BAND (PA) |
No |
%cum |
No |
%cum |
No |
%cum |
No |
%cum |
|
5,000-10,000 |
9390 |
4.3 |
14580 |
8.0 |
490 |
11.9 |
4970 |
8.3 |
|
10,000-15,000 |
54840 |
29.1 |
86570 |
55.2 |
1730 |
54.0 |
32870 |
63.1 |
|
15,000-20,000 |
46250 |
50.1 |
46890 |
80.7 |
720 |
71.5 |
14350 |
87.1 |
|
20,000-25,000 |
52580 |
74.0 |
19560 |
91.4 |
370 |
80.5 |
3610 |
93.1 |
|
25,000-30,000 |
23480 |
84.6 |
6480 |
94.9 |
160 |
84.4 |
1090 |
94.9 |
|
30,000-35,000 |
11910 |
90.0 |
2700 |
|
110 |
87.1 |
420 |
|
|
35,000-40,000 |
6690 |
93.1 |
1380 |
|
80 |
89.1 |
370 |
|
|
40,000-45,000 |
4830 |
|
1000 |
|
70 |
90.8 |
270 |
|
|
45,000 + |
7060 |
|
1320 |
|
100 |
93.2 |
200 |
|
|
Unknown |
3380 |
|
2920 |
|
280 |
|
1810 |
|
TOTAL |
220,380 |
100.0 |
183,340 |
100.0 |
4110 |
100.0 |
59,950 |
100.0 |