Equality outcomes and mainstreaming report 2019

Employee Data

7.1 Approach

106. Equality data management, analysis, and reporting on the Scottish Government as an employer is an important part of our work. We have been changing and improving the way we regularly report on equality within the organisation at all levels. Part of this involves raising awareness and supporting employees to access and use equality data to think about their work; another is specifically contributing to HR policy.

107. In 2018/19, we created a dedicated equality-focused social science research post for the People Directorate in the Scottish Government for the first time. A key part of this role is the development of an outcomes framework which will describe the success indicators and measures by which we assess progress towards delivering our employer-related equality outcomes. It will be underpinned by a data dashboard to increase transparency and accessibility of data and to assess performance and increase accountability.

108. We collect and analyse data from Scottish Government's HR management systems, as well as survey research data from our organisation-wide staff survey (called our "People Survey") and regular bespoke surveys via the Scottish Government People Panel (a representative group of employees who have agreed to participate in in-house research). We engage directly and indirectly with colleagues across the organisation who share protected characteristics to understand particular questions, needs, and how research and analysis may help. For example, to support the Race Equality Network conferences, we produced a data pack drawing together a range of data sources to paint a picture of the experience of minority ethnic colleagues in the workplace.

109. Work to drive up declaration rates^[4] has involved a systematic approach by the corporate diversity and inclusion team and a diffuse, organic approach by the LGBTI Network in particular. The Network designed lanyards bearing the rainbow, and trans flags and offered them to any employee who confirmed they had completed their diversity monitoring on e-HR or who committed to doing so. This approach has contributed to a 10 percentage point increase in sexual orientation declaration between December 2016 and December 2018.

110. In 2018, the corporate diversity and inclusion team focused on increasing declaration rates across protected characteristics to ensure that we have a robust and representative dataset. This work included disseminating a message about the importance and use of the data through blogs, networks, leadership, and systems.

Declaration Rates for Protected Characteristics at the end of 2018 (%)

Ethnicity	84
Sexual Orientation	70
Disability	58
Marital Status	58
Religion	69

111. The data we use is intrinsically connected to our corporate assurance systems. For example, as per our People Plan commitment, declaration rates are now in all monthly senior People & Finance reports and scrutinised by Director Generals and their Senior Management Teams. Furthermore, diversity and inclusion data analysis forms a substantive part of our quarterly reporting to our People Board on our people risks. The analysis is themed to provide a depth of diversity and inclusion analysis throughout the year. Diversity analysis is embedded in our balance scorecard which is used by our Corporate Board to enable Non-Executive Directors to fulfil their advisory and oversight function. Beyond this regular data reporting, analysis is commissioned on an ad hoc basis by Senior Management Teams: the recent Diversity & Inclusion Objective Challenge for Senior Civil Servants had an explicit ask of senior leaders to explore diversity data to understand the individuals and experiences of those working in their business areas.

112. We are experiencing an increasing level of demand for equality-related data and analysis as a result of the increasing policy profile around this agenda and as a result of making more data available in accessible ways. We expect this trend to continue and, as part of the business planning process, are thinking about how data management, analysis and reporting needs to continue to change and improve as a way of building knowledge and understanding of, and accountability for, diversity and inclusion across the organisation.

113. We acknowledge that there are areas where we need to improve our ability to gather (and then to analyse and use) employee equality information. Currently, we do not capture information related to gender identity on our electronic HR system (we do gather data on gender identity in our People Survey which is anonymous). Additionally, our procedures for dealing with grievances encourage informal resolution where possible, which is not recorded in any system. Formal grievances are very low in number and, along with disciplinaries, are recorded separately from our electronic HR record system (which holds employee diversity information).

114. Similarly, we hold records of training undertaken by employees which relates to e-learning, but the systems do not collect equality information of employees and are not linked to our e-HR system. This means we currently cannot analyse these aspects of the employee lifecycle by diversity. However, we recognise the importance of being able to undertake this analysis to assess equality of opportunity and we will explore available options in our planned project to review our systems.

7.2 Key findings by protected characteristic

7.2.1 Age: key findings

115. Staff under 30 increasingly comprise more of the organisation's workforce: between 2016 and 2018, the proportion of staff aged 16 - 29 increased from 12% (n= 945) to 15% (n= 1403). Younger staff and staff aged 60 or over are the most likely to leave the organisation: 36% (n= 197) of 2018 leavers were aged 16 - 29 and 24% (n= 133) were aged 60 or over. This is because younger staff are more likely to be employed on a non-permanent basis - of the 2018 leavers aged 16 - 29, 69% (n= 182) left because their contracts came to an end. Also, staff aged over 60 are more likely to retire - of the 2018 leavers aged over 60, 80% (n= 106) retired. However, younger staff have higher mean Engagement Scores^[5] in the People Survey: in 2018, respondents aged 16 - 29 had mean Engagement scores of 69% (n= 830), while respondents aged 50 or over had a mean Engagement Score of 63% (n= 1,561).

7.2.2 Gender: key findings

116. Women comprise an increasing majority of the workforce: 51% (n= 3679) of staff in 2013 were women compared to 54% (n= 4941) in 2018. As a result, they comprise most of A-C Band staff, yet are still the minority within the SCS. However, the SCS gap is narrowing: 37% (n= 64) of SCS staff in 2013 were women compared to 44% (n= 86) in 2018. Women, as a proportion of their workforce composition, are consistently less likely to apply for promotion than men: in 2018, 52% (n= 2,576) of female staff applied for promotion compared to 56% (n= 2421) of male staff. However, female applicants are consistently more likely than male applicants to be promoted: in 2018, 20% of female applicants were promoted compared to 15% of male applicants.

117. Female respondents consistently have higher mean Engagement Scores than male respondents. Female respondents' mean Scores rose from 65% (n= 2,146) to 67% (n= 2,781) between 2016 and 2018, while the mean male score rose from 61% (n= 1984) to 64% (n= 2,787). This is despite women continuing to indicate they have experienced slightly higher levels of discrimination, bullying and harassment in the People Survey. In 2018, 10% (n= 281) of female respondents had experienced discrimination in the previous 12 months, compared to 8% (n= 203) of male respondents. 12% (n= 324) of female respondents reported experiencing bullying or harassment in the previous 12 months, compared to 9% (n= 215) of male respondents.

7.2.3 Gender identity: key findings

118. In 2017, the People Survey gender question was changed from:

Are you… Male/Female?

To

What is your gender identity? Male/Female/I identify in another way

The new question allows respondents who do not identify as female or male to provide their own gender identities.

The number of People Survey respondents experiencing discrimination due to gender reassignment or perceived gender is consistently too small to be reported publicly.

7.2.4 Ethnicity: key findings

119. Minority Ethnic staff increasingly comprise more of the organisation's workforce, rising from 1.6% (n= 127) to 2.1% (n= 194) between 2016 and 2018. In particular, there are now enough minority ethnic staff within the Senior Civil Service (SCS) to be reported publicly: 3% (n=5) of SCS staff now come from minority ethnic backgrounds. On recruitment, the proportion of minority ethnic recruits rose from 2% (n= 6) in 2016 to 3% (n= 25) in 2018. Rates of minority ethnic promotion have also increased in the past two years: the number of minority ethnic promotions was too small to be reported in 2016, but in 2018 minority ethnic staff comprised 2% (n= 15) of promotions. This has brought minority ethnic promotions in line with minority ethnic workforce composition. The data appears to show that minority ethnic staff on the whole receive less favourable appraisal markings than white colleagues, but this gap is narrowing: in 2016, 36% (n= 34) of minority ethnic and 55% of white (n=2,637) staff received the two highest appraisal markings ('highly effective' or 'exceptional'); in 2018, 41% (n= 47) of minority ethnic and 56% (n= 3,066) of White staff received the two highest appraisals markings.

120. There has also been a decrease in the rates of discrimination, bullying and harassment reported in the People Survey by minority ethnic respondents. In 2016, 17% (n= 25) of minority ethnic respondents indicated that they had experienced discrimination in the previous 12 months compared to 10% (n= 18) in 2018, bringing minority ethnic discrimination rates in line with those of White respondents. Similarly, in 2016 12% (n= 19) of minority ethnic respondents said they had experienced bullying or harassment in the previous 12 months compared to 11% (n= 20) in 2018, bringing minority ethnic bullying and harassment rates in line with those of White respondents. These changes have been matched with higher Inclusion and Fair Treatment (IFT) Scores^[6] among minority ethnic respondents: the mean Score has risen from 71% (n= 157) to 84% (n= 189) between 2016 and 2018, bringing the minority ethnic mean Score in line with that of White respondents.

7.2.5 Sexual orientation: key findings

121. Since we started gathering data on staff sexual orientation in 2015, the proportion of staff identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual or 'other' (LGBO) increased from 2% (n= 148) to 4% (n= 335) in 2018. In terms of recruitment, the proportion of LGBO recruits rose from 4% (n= 15) in 2016 to 9% (n= 64) in 2018. Additionally, there are now enough LGBO staff within SCS to be reported publicly - 3% (n=5) of SCS identified as LGBO in 2018. Declaration rates have also increased since we began gathering data on sexual orientation, rising from 50% to 70% between 2015 and 2018. Higher rates of discrimination are still reported by LGBO respondents compared to straight respondents in the People Survey but this gap is narrowing. 18% (n= 34) of LGBO respondents reported experiencing discrimination in the previous 12 months in 2016 but this fell to 14% (n= 51) in 2018. However, it is important to note that respondents who identify as bisexual or 'other' consistently report higher rates of discrimination than gay or lesbian respondents: in 2018, 13% (n= 22) of gay or lesbian respondents had experienced discrimination in the previous 12 months compared to 17% (n= 18) of bisexual and 23% (n= 7) of 'other' respondents^[7].

122. Between the 2018 and 2019 Stonewall Workplace Equality Index reports, the Scottish Government's rank among employers rose from 101 to 72, achieving the Permanent Secretary's diversity and inclusion objective of entering Stonewalls' top 100 employers rankings. In 2018, Stonewall marked the Scottish Government's 'Trans inclusion work' at 13%; in 2019 this rose to 58%.

123. The 2019 report was complemented by a staff survey. Among lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) respondents, 81% would feel confident reporting homophobic or biphobic bullying and harassment they experience, 82% would feel confident disclosing their sexual orientations on a monitoring form and 82% would feel confident challenging homophobic, biphobic or transphobic behaviour at work.

7.2.6 Disability: key findings

124. Disabled staff increasingly comprise more of the organisation's workforce, rising from 6% (n= 455) in 2016 to 8% (n= 700) in 2018. While the number of disabled SCS staff remains too small to be reported publicly, there has been a substantial increase in the proportions of disabled staff recruited into the Scottish Government: 8% (n= 28) of recruits in 2016 declared a disability compared to 16% (n= 118) in 2018. Disabled staff consistently receive lower appraisal markings than non-disabled staff, but in-depth analysis could not determine that disability status was the cause of it. Positively, the proportion of disabled staff that received the two highest appraisals markings ('highly effective' or 'exceptional' rose from 40% (n= 142) to 43% (n= 202) between 2013 and 2018.

125. Disabled People Survey respondents persistently report more discrimination, bullying and harassment than non-disabled respondents: in 2018, 19% (n= 167) of disabled and 7% (n= 326) of non-disabled respondents reported experiencing discrimination in the previous 12 months; and 18% (n= 155) of disabled and 9% (n= 393) of non-disabled respondents reported experiencing bullying or harassment in the previous 12 months. This is matched by persistently lower mean Inclusion and Fair Treatment (IFT) scores among disabled respondents: in 2018, disabled respondents had a mean IFT score of 74% (n= 870), compared to 84% (n= 4374) for non-disabled respondents. However, disabled respondents' mean Engagement score rose from 59% (n= 583) in 2016 to 64% (n= 870) in 2018, bringing it in line with the Scottish Government's overall mean score of 65% (n= 5659).

7.2.7 Religion: key findings

126. Declaration rates have increased since we began gathering data on religion in 2015, rising from 49% to 69% in 2018. Staff from non-Christian faith groups have persistently received lower appraisal markings than Christian and non-religious staff: in 2018, 45% (n= 49) of staff from non-Christian faith groups received one of the two highest appraisals markings ('highly effective' or 'exceptional') compared to 55% (n= 986) of Christian and 57% (n= 1,394) of non-religious staff. However, non-Christian staff comprise an increasing proportion of promoted staff, rising from 2% (n= 5) in 2016 to 3% (n= 23) in 2018. Higher rates of discrimination are still reported by non-Christian respondents than non-religious respondents in the People Survey but this gap is narrowing. 18% (n= 29) of non-Christian respondents reported experiencing discrimination in the previous 12 months in 2016 but this fell to 11% (n= 25) in 2018. Among non-religious respondents, 8% (n= 189) reported experiencing discrimination in the previous 12 months in 2016, and this rose to 9% (n= 279). As a result, the percentage point gap in discrimination rates between non-Christian and non-religious respondents dropped from 10% in 2016 to 2% in 2018. This has been matched by gradual increases in non-Christian respondents' Engagement and Inclusion and Fair Treatment (IFT) scores: between 2016 and 2018, Engagement scores rose from 62% (n= 157) to 67% (n= 189), and IFT scores rose from 70% (n= 157) to 79% (n= 189).

7.2.8 Pregnancy and maternity: key findings

127. 125 staff took maternity leave in 2018, slightly down from 130 2016. This has continued a downward trend as 168 staff took maternity leave in 2013. However, there has also been a relative increase in the length of leave taken by staff: in 2013, 53% took between 40 and 52 weeks of leave, while 78% took (or plan to take - they may still be on leave) between 40 and 52 weeks of leave in 2018.

7.3 Pay Gap Information: Gender, Race and Disability

7.3.1 Coverage

128. The Scottish Government has three groups of staff each with separate sets of remuneration arrangements. The three pay groups are:

• Scottish Government Main bargaining unit (SGM);
• Scottish Government Marine bargaining unit (SGMarine); and
• Senior Civil Service (SCS).

129. The Scottish Government has delegated authority to determine the pay, and terms and conditions for all staff below SCS. The Senior Civil Service is reserved to the UK Government. While the members of the SCS are Scottish Government employees, their remuneration is in line with UK Cabinet Office pay and performance management framework.

7.3.2 Gender

130. The Scottish Government defines the gender pay gap as the difference in mean average full-time equivalent earnings for men and women. The mean is the sum of hourly rates, including permanent allowances but excluding overtime, for each person divided by the number of people.

131. The national^[8] (UK) figure for the gender pay gap is 8.6% and in Scotland the figure is 5.7% for 2018. This is a median average figure and the equivalent mean average figures for the UK and Scotland are 13.7% and 10.2% respectively.

132. Since publication of the 2017 Mainstreaming Report, the gender pay gap reduced by 0.75% (down from 4.14%) to 3.39%. This is likely to be attributable to the increase in the overall proportion of women in the organisation, but also, importantly, the proportion of women at more senior, and therefore higher paying, levels.

133. The Scottish Government seeks to ensure that all policies that support the employment of staff are free from gender bias and that work of equal value attracts equal pay. Within the Scottish Government (Scottish Government Main and Marine Scotland) where men and women are undertaking work of equal value (i.e. within the same pay range) they are paid a similar rate and consequently the pay gap is low. The reason for an overall pay gap of 3.39% is that despite the increased proportions of women at senior grades, overall there are still more women in lower pay ranges which lowers the overall average hourly rate.

	Female		Male		Pay Gap
	Mean	Median	Mean	Median	Mean	Median
All Staff	£37,960	£33,094	£39,290	£34,292	3.39%	3.49%

A positive pay gap indicates where male staff have a pay lead

7.3.3 Other Characteristics

7.3.3.1 Working Pattern

In 2017, the pay gap was 1.14% in favour of full-time staff in relation to part-time staff. However, revised data is being measured this year, i.e. the difference between part-time female staff and full-time male staff.

	Female		Male		Pay Gap
	Mean	Median	Mean	Median	Mean	Median
All Staff	£38,829	£33,094	£38,235	£33,094	1.53%	0%

A positive pay gap indicates where full-time male staff have a pay lead

7.3.3.2 Ethnicity

In 2017 the pay gap was 7.55% in favour of staff declared as White. The exclusion from the analysis of those staff who have not self-declared their ethnicity, i.e. 'unknown', or who have indicated that they "prefer not to say", increases the influence on the statistics of the staff who have self-declared. Out of a total of 8,329 staff, there are 1,445 who have not declared themselves either minority ethnic or white.

	Female		Male		Pay Gap
	Mean	Median	Mean	Median	Mean	Median
All Staff	£36,855	£33,094	£39,384	£35,344	6.42%	6.37%

A positive pay gap indicates where white staff have a pay lead

7.3.3.3 Disability

In 2017 the pay gap was 13.50% in favour of staff declared as not disabled. The pay lead of non-disabled staff is a reflection of the proportion of self-declared disabled staff within the pay and grading system. This is highest in the more junior grades and declines as one progresses through to more senior grades. The figures represent 4,800 staff who have either declared a disability, or declared themselves as not disabled, out of a total of 8,329 staff.

	Female		Male		Pay Gap
	Mean	Median	Mean	Median	Mean	Median
All Staff	£35,096	£31,515	£40,992	£36,328	14.38%	13.25%

A positive pay gap indicates where non-disabled staff have a pay lead

In Scottish Government Main bargaining unit and SGMarine, staff will typically be recruited at the pay range minimum and progress to the maximum. Current progression journeys range from a minimum of two years to a maximum of four years depending on pay range. The tables above are a snapshot reflecting length of service and pay progression journey at a particular point, i.e. as at 31 December 2018.

7.4 Tackling the Pay Gap

We committed in the Gender Pay Action Plan to conducting a Gender Pay Audit, in which we will investigate the current state - and key drivers - of pay and occupational segregation at the Scottish Government across protected characteristics.

Tackling the pay gap, much like embedding diversity and inclusion in all that we do, requires a whole-system approach. We need to engage in several activities that will help us understand and tackle the gaps.

Some of these activities are already underway. In terms of analysis, we are analysing our job families as described in the next section. We are also analysing our flexible working policies, career break experiences, and the number of staff with caring responsibilities. Alongside and informed by our ongoing analysis, a number of areas of work described in our mainstreaming as an employer section will contribute to closing the gap. In particular, our strategic whole-system approach, engaging our leaders, leveraging our employee networks, implementing positive action measures, offering mutual mentoring and more.

Targets are an important form of measurement. We have set targets on the flow of minority ethnic people to senior civil service and we are currently setting similar targets for disabled people.

In 2019/2020, we intend to use our commitment in the Gender Pay Action Plan to bring together current and developing work related to understanding the tackling the gender pay gap, focused on uncovering areas for improvement.

7.5 Job Families and Occupational Segregation

One of our key areas of work related to equality and diversity, as well as the pay gap, is understanding the roles performed by our workforce. This will enable us to have a good understanding of horizontal occupational segregation - the clustering of men and women (and other protected characteristics) in business areas across the organisation - and better understand features underlying any pay gap. We are working to develop job title information for current employees alongside other data, e.g. grade, directorate and location.

Initial work has explored the potential of Job Families based on draft categories and job title information. This has allowed us to gain a better understanding of the nature and distribution of jobs across the organisation (see Table below). Process improvements have been put in place to reduce missing job title information for contingent workers. Further improvements to guidance and systems will be carried out over the next year with the intention to have individual self-selection of job roles added to our existing systems.

Job Families, by gender

(Allocation of January 2019 job titles to experimental categories - Excludes missing or unclassified job titles)

7.6 Appraisal Markings

The data we reported in 2017 appeared to show less positive outcomes for disabled staff in relation to performance marking than non-disabled staff. This was cause for concern given our ambition to be a fair, equal opportunity employer where employees can flourish. Consequently, we undertook further analysis of the data to try to establish the cause of this difference in outcome. Examining appraisal marking versus time in service shows that those with a disability consistently receive lower markings than those without a disability regardless of their age, grade or the stage of their career. A logistic regression model of this data set confirmed this difference to be statistically significant but, crucially, was not able to determine that disability status was the cause of it.

We will undertake further investigation into career experience to illuminate this picture, analysing applicant success rates, retention rates, career mobility and progression as well as people survey responses relating to appraisals. This will inform our understanding of how disability status is experienced in the Scottish Government and will contribute to the development of our disability recruitment and retention action plan and the upcoming review of the performance management policy. This analysis will be replicated across other protected characteristics where we identify similar issues.

It is also recognised that disability has the lowest declaration rate of all the protected characteristics we monitor, with 62% of staff having provided information about their disability status on our electronic HR systems. A more complete data set would better inform this analysis and thus we will focus on increasing all declaration rates, but especially relating to disability status, over the next 2 years.