The National Strategy for Women and Girls is the framework through which the Government is pursuing actions to advance the rights of women and girls and to enable their full participation in Irish society. It is an all of Government framework.
There are three actions in this strategy that fall specifically under the remit of my department. The first relates to measures to improve gender balance on State Boards.
The second concerns greater representation of women in senior positions in the civil service and public service.
And the third relates to advancing gender budgeting. A similar commitment regarding the expansion of Equality Budgeting is also contained in the Programme for Government: Our Shared Future.
Gender Balance on State Boards
The Public Appointments Service provides regular reporting on gender disaggregate data in respect of recent recruitment campaigns for State boards and in respect of the composition of the individual State boards. These statistics are available at www.stateboards.ie.
In September 2020 my Department published an Annex to the Code of Practice for the Governance of State Bodies dealing with Gender Balance, Diversity and Inclusion on State boards. The Annex contains a number of measures to support gender balance on State boards. The Annex is available at here.
Progress Reported
An analysis carried out in June 2021 on the 203 non vacant[1] State Boards showed that there were 2,085 serving board members and the gender participation rates are 44.70% female (Dec 2018: 41.5%) and 55.34% male (Dec 2018: 58.50%), with 50.74% of Boards (Dec 2018: 47.6%) now meeting the 40% gender targets.
While I am pleased to see ongoing improvement since 2018 I am anxious to support further progress, and I am considering further options in this regard.
Female Representation in senior civil service positions
Significant progress has been made in appointment females to the most senior levels in the civil service:
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Percentage Female Representation in Senior Grades
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Grade
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1997
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2007
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2021
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Secretary General
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5%
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19%
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32%
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Assistant Secretary General
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10%
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19%
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43%
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Principal Officer
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12%
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26%
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48%
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Assistant Principal
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24%
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33%
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53%
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Actions to improve female representation at senior levels in the civil service:
The Civil Service is committed to equality of opportunity. The Government has implemented positive action measures to promote gender balance for all senior appointments including:
- In 2018, Government approved a policy for TLAC competitions in support of a goal of attaining a 50/50 gender balance on Management Boards. Where candidates compete for such positions and are of equal merit at the final stage of a competition, priority is given to the female candidate should that gender be underrepresented on the Management Board of the Department/Office in question. In 2020, 59% of all appointments to TLAC positions at Assistant Secretary Level and above were filled by female candidates.
- Additionally, in the case of serving civil servants, DPER has introduced Executive Leadership Programmes at Assistant Secretary and Principal Officer levels to support participants in developing the skills they need for senior leadership positions and the confidence to apply for such positions. There is equal gender balance amongst participants.
Equality Budgeting
Since 2018, when it was first piloted, significant work has been undertaken to develop the Equality Budgeting initiative. With an initial focus on gender, due to the availability of data, Equality Budgeting has since been expanded across multiple dimensions of equality including gender, socio-economic, disability and minority groups.
An Equality Budgeting Expert Advisory Group (EBEAG) has been established to guide the development of Equality Budgeting policy. Representing key stakeholders such as the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, the National Women’s Council and the National Disability Authority, this group is chaired by my Department and has met regularly since 2018.
To drive this important work forward in line with international best practice, in 2019 the OECD was requested by my Department, and the Department of Justice and Equality, to conduct a scan of Equality Budgeting in Ireland. The report, published on Budget day 2020, supported the approach taken, and also provided twelve recommendations on how to drive this initiative forward.
Implementation of the report's recommendations is well advanced, is a continued focus of work, and includes the work-streams below.
In cooperation with my Department, the CSO conducted a data audit in 2020 to ascertain the availability of public service data that is disaggregated by equality dimension. This work was guided by the EBEAG and the audit findings were published alongside Budget 2021. The information is published on the CSO website and will continue to be updated as new data is identified.
Following the data audit, work is now underway to identify a data strategy that will identify what actions are needed to improve the disaggregation of data and identify actions needed to address data gaps. This work is led by the CSO and the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (D/CEDIY).
A key OECD recommendation, that has underpinned overall implementation, was the establishment of an inter-departmental network of Equality Budgeting contact points. In March 2021, Government agreed to establish an inter-departmental network on Equality Budgeting in order to facilitate the full implementation of Equality Budgeting across all departments, in line with this OECD recommendation. The network first met in June, and have since met on three further dates. The inter-departmental network members are tasked with:
- ensuring that policy makers in their departments are fully aware of, and implementing, Equality Budgeting policy where applicable and
- bringing all relevant work within their department to the attention of the Equality Budgeting unit, to ensure that strategic direction of Equality Budgeting is fully informed.
Wellbeing Budgeting
An initial multi-dimensional Well-being Framework for Ireland was published in July 2021. Since then the CSO has launched an interactive dashboard to complement the Framework and a wide-ranging public consultation led by the Department of the Taoiseach is ongoing. My Department is in the process of piloting an approach of locating well-being within existing public policy. The approach builds on the performance budgeting initiative by placing an explicit focus on stated policy goals and evidence of progress. With regard to well-being, my Department intends to:
(1) Put in place supports for other Departments to support them in using the Well-being Framework as part of the Spending Review process; and
(2) Develop an approach to linking budget decisions with the various dimensions of the Well-being Framework.
Public Sector Duty
In line with the Public Sector Duty, under section 42 of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission Act 2014, all public bodies assess and identify the human rights of women and girls and the gender equality issues that are relevant to their functions and address these in their strategic planning, policies and practices, and annual reports.
My Department published its Statement of Strategy 2021-2023 on 19/01/2021, which includes its Public Sector Human Rights and Equality obligations among the organisation’s values. www.gov.ie/en/collection/da1589-dper-annual-reports-2013-16/#2020.
Next steps
We continue to work very closely with our colleagues in D/CEDIY to ensure that Equality Budgeting and gender mainstreaming work together to achieve common goals and on mutually beneficial policies. The Inter-departmental network outlined above is jointly chaired by D/CEDIY which ensures collaboration is maximised.
The actions outlined above, and the work plan in place for 2022, will continue to support the further development of Equality Budgeting, ensuring that that the momentum achieved to date will be maintained.
[1] A vacant board is an established board with no board members currently in place.
