Equality outcomes and mainstreaming report 2019

Annex E: Employee Data

Introduction

This annex provides diversity information for full calendar years, 2013-2018, for the following bodies:

Scottish Government Core Departments: Constitution and External Affairs, Economy, Education, Communities and Justice, Health and Social Care, Organisational Development and Operations and Scottish Exchequer.

Scottish Government Executive Agencies: Accountant in Bankruptcy, Disclosure Scotland, Education Scotland, Scottish Public Pensions Agency, Social Security Scotland, Student Awards Agency for Scotland and Transport Scotland.

Non-Ministerial Departments: Food Standards Scotland, National Records of Scotland, Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator^[21], Revenue Scotland, Scottish Housing Regulator.

Employees in the following categories are included: Permanent staff, those on maternity or adoption leave, outward secondments, those on career breaks, modern apprentices, fixed-term appointments (open competition and no competition) and students on placements.

Breakdowns of the following characteristics are provided: Age, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, marital status and religion. Where appropriate, there are data related to staff on maternity leave, pay band, guaranteed interview status, socio-economic background, caring responsibilities and childcare responsibilities.

Data sources

Data are drawn from the Scottish Government's HR system and the annual Civil Service People Survey. Data tables contain both the numbers (identified with the letter 'N') and percentages of staff. The population comparator data contained in section 2.1 are drawn from the Mid-2017 population estimates for Scotland (for age and gender) and the 2015 Scottish Core Survey Questions for ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, marital status and religion.

Information on the protected characteristics (age, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability status, marital/civil partnership status, and religion or belief) is provided by the employee on a voluntary basis. For some protected characteristics (for example, age and sex) the information held is complete or very nearly complete, while the information held for other characteristics is less well populated.

Disclosure control

To avoid the possible disclosure of information about individual members of staff, data suppression has been applied to counts of fewer than 5 (and the corresponding percentage value) in the HR data tables; suppression is applied to People Survey data where counts are fewer than 10. Suppressed values are shown as an asterisk (*). Where the only small counts in a table refer to the 'prefer not to say' or 'unknown' categories, no data suppression is done.

Terminology

'Minority ethnic': staff with non-White ethnic identities.

'LGBO': staff identifying as lesbian, gay or bisexual, and staff identifying with an 'other' sexual orientation.

'SCS': Staff in the 'Senior Civil Service'.

'TRS': Temporary Responsibility Supplement (a payment where staff undertake a temporary period in a higher pay range).

Acronyms in Section 2.3

AIB: Accountant in Bankruptcy

DG CEA: Constitution and External Affairs

DG ECON: Economy

DG ECJ: Education, Communities and Justice

DG HSC: Health and Social Care

DG ODO: Organisational Development and Operations

DG SE: Scottish Exchequer

Disc Scot: Disclosure Scotland

Edu Scot: Education Scotland

FSS: Food Standards Scotland

NRS: National Records of Scotland

OSCR: Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator

Rev Scot: Revenue Scotland

SHR: Scottish Housing Regulator

SPPA: Scottish Public Pensions Agency

SSS: Social Security Scotland

SAAS: Student Awards Agency for Scotland

Trans Scot: Transport Scotland

Diversity composition of Scottish Government Workforce

Overall, the Scottish Government continues to gather better quality data on the diversity of its workforce. Declaration rates (the proportion of staff who actively maintain their diversity data, whether by declaring a diversity characteristic or choosing the 'prefer not to say' option) have risen across ethnicity, sexual orientation and religion:

Declaration Rates for Protected Characteristics (%)

	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018
Ethnicity	78.7	79.5	78.6	80.9	83.6	83.8
Sexual Orientation	na	na	49.8	58.1	65.1	69.7
Disability	61.2	58.8	56.2	58	59.8	57.6
Marital Status	70.2	67.8	64.8	64.6	63.1	57.9
Religion	na	na	49.2	57.5	64.7	69.2

Data on sexual orientation and religion was not gathered until 2015. Age and gender have close to 100% declaration rates.

This has been matched by increased diversity across the workforce. Since 2013, minority ethnic, LGBO and disabled staff have gradually comprised more of the overall workforce, bringing the workforce demographics closer in line with the Scottish population. In particular, the proportion of women in the SCS continues to rise, and there is now a large enough number of minority ethnic and LGBO SCS staff that the figures are not subject to disclosure control. Disabled staff have not made the same progress at SCS level but there has been an increased number of disabled staff at Bands B and C.

On maternity leave, there has been a general trend in staff taking longer lengths of leave, with the majority taking between 40 and 52 weeks.