Reply to questionnaire from Department
of Health
QUESTIONNAIRE ON
IMPLEMENTATION OF
THE GENDER
EQUALITY DUTY
1. What practical measures have you taken
to implement the duty in relation to employees of your Department?
Have you undertaken an equal pay audit, or another survey to detect
any barriers to the full participation of women in your workforce?
What have you done to address under-representation of women in
specific grades or types of post?
— The profile of women in senior
posts within the Department of Health exceeds Cabinet Office targets
(40% compared with 37%) We have therefore set ourselves additional
"stretch" objectives to ensure we strive to improve
our position. One of these is that, by December 2008, there should
be 43% of women in the SCS.
— Our HR strategy set out in our
Single Equality Scheme sets out a number of positive action measures
including diversity briefings for headhunters and recruitment
agencies to ensure that we have a diverse pool of applicants;
career development programmes open to all staff from under-represented
groups; a planned programme of mentoring for staff in these groups;
and monitoring of all recruitment and employment data by gender
and the other equality strands. We've also just completed the
first stage analysis of the equal pay review and we are currently
carrying out some more detailed analysis.
— All HR policies and processes
are now equality impact assessed before implementation. We have
just established a Single Equality Council, with representatives
from the diversity networks, who will have central role to play
in quality assuring and diversity proofing all internal policies
and procedures, and will comment on draft health and social care
policies.
2. Have you reviewed the policies and administrative
procedures of your Department for gender bias? What action have
you taken to correct such bias?
Our Single Equality Scheme sets out a number
of activities that we are undertaking in respect of gender equality.
These include:
— Establishment of the Gender
Equality Advisory Group (GEAG) —functioning to advise
DH on health trends, provide a consultative forum on outward-facing
policy, review and provide feedback on its development and implementation.
This includes development of an action plan to address discrimination
against transgender people.
— Domestic Abuse—DH
has established guidance, set up advisory groups and linked with
specialist organisations. The aims of this are to improve maternal
health and needs of pregnant women in view of the fact that many
cases of domestic abuse start during pregnancy. Guidance issued
on Responding to Domestic Abuse: A handbook for Health Professionals.
— Sexual Orientation and Gender
Identity Action Group (SOGIAG) —A programme to eliminate
discrimination and promote equality for Lesbian Gay Bisexual and
Transgender people in health and social care a number of projects
sitting underneath this work including work on transgender health
and promotion of positive image/good relations plus leaflets on
Sexual Health Information for Women who have sex with women.
— Gender research Project—Developing
research and guidance into how men and women access services.
This project will be very strategic and will systematically analyse
and provide evidence in relation to gender equality and then provide
a basis for identifying specific actions that the DH and NHS needs
to take to address gender inequality of outcomes in health. This
will help to inform priorities for the future.
— Public health information
strategy and policy guidance to support local analysis of commissioning
and service development—EQIA completed on planned development
work.
— Guidance on effective community
and court liaison to address gender issues—on target
for delivery by March 2008.
— Delivering gender equality
for women's mental health—work includes strengthening
accountability, improving quality and experience of services,
and improved support.
— Including gender equality
in Departmental EqIA training. The Department urges all staff
to acquire EqIA training to inform policy-making. Its internal
policy specialist site signposts staff on how to acquire this
training.
The Department is committed to promoting equality
within the health service in order to achieve delivery on our
drive to improve health, tackle health inequalities and create
greater choice and responsiveness in the NHS. The Department's
EglA training underpins its commitment to ensuring that the legal
requirements in terms of ensuring that different groups and individuals
within society are not discriminated against or excluded, must
be the starting point for all its policies.
The Government also has a number of programmes
to embed equality within public services and underpin new legislative
frameworks and undertakings.
— The Department of Health has
published a guide to help NHS organisations comply with the legislation:
Creating a Gender Equality Scheme: A Practical Guide for the
NHS provides best practice advice on how NHS organisations
might produce a Gender Equality Scheme. The Guide specifically
addresses issues of equal pay as well as a broader commitment
towards tackling gender inequalities within healthcare.
— The Department is supporting
the NHS's Single Equality Scheme project which also incorporates
gender equality.
— The Department and NHS Employers
(part of NHS Confederation representing NHS Trusts in England
on Workforce issues) have been doing work for some time on the
development of a single equality scheme for NHS organisations.
There is also advice on the NHS Employers' Website on both gender
duty and carrying out pay audits for NHS organisations.
— As part of Agenda for Change—the
new pay and reward system for the NHS—the Equalities Group
(a sub-group of the NHS Staff Council) are now monitoring the
levels of pay by gender and ethnicity, comparing pre- and post-Agenda
for Change levels.
— The Department has a key role
in the development of the social care workforce and as we deliver
the requirements set out in Our Health, Our Care, Our Say, we
are working closely with the Improvement and Development Agency
for Local Government (IDeA) and Skills for Care Eastern to gather
information that will help develop a model of practice for employers.
Our aim is to bring employers together, from health and social
care, public, private and voluntary sectors and learn how they
have worked across boundaries, to effectively agree a shared workforce
plan that is coherent and cohesive with their business planning
process. When we are able to present a model of integrated workforce
planning that is shown to work, we would aim to roll this out
across other areas with the expectation that, employers would
join up recruitment, induction and training which in time would
result in reduced staff turnover as the sectors improved partnership
working.
— The Department also provides
funding and grants to develop the social care workforce: the National
Training Strategy (NTS) grant provides £107.9 million in
2007-08 to support training and development of staff working in
both Adult and Children's social care services; the Human Resources
Development Strategy Grant provides £49.75 million in 2007-08
to support social care employers to develop the social care workforce;
£285 million is being invested in 2007-08 on Social Care
Development and Training; £91 million is being spent to continue
to support social work education and training, including over
£60 million in financial support to social work students.
3. Have your procurement policies and practices
been changed to take account of the gender equality duty? How
do they reflect the duty?
— In terms of procurement the
Department's terms and conditions of contract contain a clause
relating to Discrimination and Human Rights that stipulates: "...
the Contractor shall ensure that it complies with all current
employment legislation and in particular, ... the Sex Discrimination
Act 1975 (as amended), ... the Equality Act 2006, ...".
— An additional clause is being
considered to provide additional clarification on the specific
responsibilities and consultation will take place with our Solicitors
branch.
4. Generally, are there any differences in
your approach to implementing the gender equality duty from your
approach to implementing the race equality duty?
— We have developed a Single Equality
Scheme that captures activity across all the equality strands
and, whilst we adopt the same principles and practices in the
collation of information, we are clear that the gender equality
duty places specific requirements on public sector bodies.
— In terms of policy development,
we have set up a Gender Equality Advisory Group which helps the
Department develop strategic direction in this area.
— We keep our commitments in our
Single Equality Scheme under constant review and revise our plans
taking into account comments from internal and external stakeholders,
including the Equal Opportunities Commission.
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