Reply to questionnaire from Department
for Transport
QUESTIONNAIRE RESPONSES
ON IMPLEMENTATION
OF THE
GENDER EQUALITY
DUTY
1. Practical measures to implement the
duty: the Department's plans for implementing the duty are
set out in detail in our Gender Equality Scheme—www.dft.gov.uk/about/sr/ges.pdf
Since the Scheme has been published:
— new contracts have been let for recruitment
consultants. Mini-tenders will be prepared for each campaign seeking
effective initiatives that promote diversity in relation to the
specific position or grade.
— a review of the actual uptake and
practical use of our flexible working policies is being undertaken
by our staff led Flexible Working Group.
— a review has been completed on the
Department's approach to Dignity at Work and its recommendations
will be taken forward through changes in Human Resource policies
and through greater support for managers as part of our broader
response to the Capability Review.
— Equal Pay audits are conducted every
three years by each of the DfT agencies and the central Department.
Although the latest audits did not highlight any significant equal
pay gaps, some issues were identified and these are either included
in GES action plan and/or being dealt with by each business. Impact
assessments have also been carried out by each agency and central
department following the 2006 pay awards.
— we are setting up a gender sounding-board
"Gender Focus" to be made up of members of staff from
each Business Area. The group will consider gender issues generally
with a focus on women in the Department.
— our annual diversity monitoring—required
for race equality monitoring—has been extended to cover
gender at all key stages of employment. We aim to publish figures
covering 2005-07 during October. We will identify gender differences
and develop strategies to eliminate any as our Scheme develops.
2. Review of policies and procedures:
the Department has reviewed all new policies and procedures
that will have an impact on its employees by gender and other
diversity groups for several years.
It is still early days for any significant reviews
to have been conducted since the introduction of the duty. However,
in the central Department we have undertaken a diversity review
of new procedures that require staff to assess themselves, on-line,
against our performance management competency framework. Analysis
of these assessments suggests that gender and other differences
are present. Further work is required to assess the results and
determine strategies for removing the gaps.
3. Procurement: The department uses
a set of standard terms and conditions when putting work out to
tender, the actual wording does change slightly according
to the type of work but all will contain a paragraph on discrimination.
In addition, all DfT conditions also require, as a matter of contract,
that contractors comply with "all relevant statutory requirements".
The standards set are available on the DfT website at http://www.dft.gov.uk/about/procurement/dft/.
Our internal procurement manual is under review
and revisions to meet the new gender duties, as well as the disability
duties, are a high priority.
4. Differences in approach to the race
duty: the approach has generally been similar. However, the
requirement in the Disability Duty to "involve" disabled
staff was particularly helpful and we applied this to the Gender
Duty. We sought to involve women (and men) directly in the development
of the scheme from the start.
It is too early to say clearly whether this
has been more effective than the more limited, consultation, approach,
but that is our feeling at this stage. We aim to use this approach
as we develop all of the schemes.
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