Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-39)
BARONESS PROSSER
14 MARCH 2007
Q20 Dr Berry: Finally, on the government's
Action Plan, some people have said—perhaps perfectly reasonably—that
one of the reasons the Action Plan is a bit vague and non-committal
in detail is that there are public spending implications on all
of this, and with the Comprehensive Spending Review being in preparation
in fairness there was a limit to what could be said in terms of
very specific commitments that involved public expenditure. To
what extent do you think your recommendations could be achieved
without significant extra resources? Is there an argument that
a lot of what you recommend, without people needing to worry too
much about spending, is simply about the political will?
Baroness Prosser: I think there
is a great deal that could be done with political will and some
of it is about redirection. For example, the Trade Union Modernisation
Fund, we recommended that there should be a specific fund for
training equality reps in the workplace and DTI has been complaining
for some considerable time about how strapped it is for cash,
and so what they did—which was not terribly pleasing to
everybody but was, I suppose, the best they felt they could do
at the time—was to redirect monies from the Trade Union
Modernisation Fund to be specifically allocated to training the
equality reps, and there has been one round of claims under that
and another round which I think concludes in April, and the T&G,
the NUJ and Wales TUC have all started doing the equality rep
training arising from that money. So that was a redirection, if
you like. Speaking to people in the education service—not
in DfES but from schools and from the education unions—they
say that work experience and careers guidance will not really
improve until there is a recognition that those jobs should be
more specific and funded in a more specific way. So at the moment,
for example, the responsibility for work experience is just tacked
on to the responsibility of a teacher who has to do something
else. So if it is not taken seriously at that level then we cannot
really expect the teacher to do too much about it. So I do think
more funding there would have been helpful. But of course the
£40m from the budget was very, very welcome, and the specific
training that is going on at the moment, I guess, would not be
happening if there were not that extra money for it.
Q21 Miss Kirkbride: You touched on
this earlier, about exemplar employers. Do you want to give us
any more details about that? You said there were 100 of them.
Baroness Prosser: There is over
100 of them.
Q22 Miss Kirkbride: Does any one
stand out as to what they are doing, so that you can inform the
community?
Baroness Prosser: I can give you
a few examples of things that people are doing. For example, Cranfield
University is developing a work experience project and that is
targeted at local schools so that they are doing that. Friends
Provident has a big investigation going on to try to determine
why it is that more women are not moving up into senior management
and they have a staff survey going on to analyse all of that.
The Royal Mail, for example, has a big Springboard training programme
going on, which is training women who are working in the sorting
offices to become junior managers and then another programme to
get junior managers up to senior managers; and in Post Office
Limited, which is a separate company within Royal Mail, they have
a very big women's network that is funded by the company, and
a buddy system for women who are more senior to help those who
are coming forward. Staffordshire University is doing an equal
pay review. The University of Southampton has a women and science
network, so there is a whole variety of different things going
on, and a number of the companies involved are the very big corporates,
like Shell Oil, the Ford Motor Company, BMW, ABB Engineering—quite
big organisations as well as numbers of public sector bodies of
course.
Q23 Miss Kirkbride: They are doing
things similar to what you have described at the Post Office?
Baroness Prosser: Yes.
Q24 Miss Kirkbride: So do you see
that as a model for better practice that you would like extended
to certainly plc companies—or all companies—that would
be easier in some ways?
Baroness Prosser: I think more
and more businesses are beginning to recognise that there is an
enormous waste of talent going on. There is a shortage of skills
in the country and they also recognise that their businesses should
reflect rather better the people that they try to serve, so if
you have a business that is largely aimed at women and it is entirely
run by men people are beginning to FALL in that that is maybe
not the best business practice. So there is all that going on
on that side, so it is in their interests really at the moment
to try to improve things. Then the lessons that will come out
of each of these companies and the best practice that is exchanged
will be produced as guidance by Opportunity Now and it will be
up to us to come and stand behind that and make sure that it continues
to move forward. The one thing that I am really afraid of is that
all of a sudden there will be another recession and nobody will
want so many workers any more and we all know who will be out
of the door first, really, so I am slightly anxious. We need to
get to critical mass before such a thing happens.
Q25 Miss Kirkbride: I suppose that
is probably what you would hope employers and trade unions are
going to do, with your report, to take this up.
Baroness Prosser: Absolutely.
Q26 Miss Kirkbride: Is there anything
else in your report that you think they could do?
Baroness Prosser: The mention
of trade unions, I would like to see unions being more proactive
in the workplace and asking more questions about why it is that
women continue to lag behind, why it is that somehow or another
men get these jobs and women get those jobs. You do not need an
equal pay review when you walk around a trade union organised
workplace to determine who is earning what; you can see it. I
would like them to be more proactive to encourage employers to
monitor who gets what of the training budget, why is it that the
training budget always goes to the most senior staff, almost all
of whom will be men? Why do those part time women not get more
training money allocated to them? Why are not requests for flexibility,
extended leave or whatever it might be, monitored more carefully
so that it can be determined whether or not a particular manager
is behaving fairly as against the behaviour of another manager?
But quite often in work places that are scattered or large the
answer you get to a question in one part of the workplace would
be completely different to the answer you get in another part,
despite the fact that the national policy of the organisation
might be very progressive and helpful; and yet nobody monitors
these things, so it is all a bit happenstance. So there are a
number of easy things really that unions could buck up on, frankly.
Q27 Chairman: Following on from that,
it is very gratifying now that when the TUC comes to give evidence
we have very senior women there coming and doing that.
Baroness Prosser: Absolutely.
Q28 Chairman: But as I am sure at
some stage we will be seeing the TUC, from your inside knowledge
are there any pointed questions or issues that we should be putting
to them about their own practice, both in terms of themselves
as employers and themselves as representatives of the workforce,
and what they should be pursuing?
Baroness Prosser: The TUC policy
has been—and I have no quarrel with this—that we should
have recommended statutory equal pay reviews, and at the Commission
we could not agree on this so we agreed to set out the arguments
for equal pay reviews without making a case for legislation to
back them up—that was where we found ourselves. First of
all, in a trade union organised workplace unions can of course
negotiate to get equal pay reviews conducted so it would be interesting
to know just how many are going on and how many have been either
conducted or in the process of so being. It would also be interesting
to know just how many training agreements are in place, which
include the upskilling of women, and there will be some good examples
but there are lots and lots more places where lots more could
be done. Then the whole question of equality reps; I do not think
that an equality representative should be a substitute for the
shop steward. When we were taking evidence at the Women &
Work Commission a number of equality reps came to see us and we
had a round table and they came from all different unions, my
own included, but I found it a very disappointing session because
they were doing the equality work that the shop steward was not
interested in—"Oh, there is a woman's problem over
there," but actually it is a workplace problem, it just happens
to be a woman who has it. Equal pay is a workplace problem, it
is not specific, and it is not something that should be thrown
over the shoulder. My idea of equality reps is that they should
be proactive, they should be working with the union and with the
employer to identify ways in which opportunities for women in
that workplace could be improved or measured, or data collected
to determine exactly what is going on and how things could be
shifted. So it would be interesting to know if the TUC is still
supportive of that approach.
Q29 Chairman: Are there any other
questions that we should be asking trade unions about their own
practice?
Baroness Prosser: Lord above!
Q30 Chairman: It is your opportunity.
Baroness Prosser: You can certainly
ask them about their own practice. In my personal experience it
leaves a great deal to be desired.
Q31 Chairman: So they follow the
same pattern as the rest of society?
Baroness Prosser: Yes. I will
not say more than that.
Q32 Chairman: Going back to employers,
the examples you gave were mostly quite large employers, were
they not, and I know that within your report you did also talk
about issues relating to small firms and some of the difficulties,
and I think that was one area where the government has not in
its recommendations gone as far as you would have liked. Would
you like to say something on that and what you think we should
be pursuing?
Baroness Prosser: I think it would
do no harm if you asked representatives of the small business
service to come and talk to you about what they are doing. I recognise
absolutely that the issues for small business can be quite tricky
and they have a complete fear of the legislation which gives maternity
rights and paternity rights—how can they manage when they
only have four and a half staff, or whatever it might be, and
these are real issues to be addressed. But they are not addressing
them at the moment, they are just afraid of them. Many, many women
work in small firms and somehow or another it would be useful
to get some ideas from them about ways in which we can start stepping
forward in this area.
Q33 Miss Kirkbride: If you were they
what would be your answer to that, given the very practical difficulties
of four and a half staff in the business and one goes off?
Baroness Prosser: Lots and lots
of jobs can be done in very different ways; lots of jobs do not
require nine to five attendance at the workplace. So trusting
employees to work in different ways, and starting that process
before it is thrust upon you I think would be a help to them.
They do get repaid for maternity leave so it is not such a financial
burden as they seem to think. We have a big problem in this country
that small enterprises do not grow into bigger enterprises; we
have lots and lots of small firms, not so many of the small and
medium enterprises, and if they want their companies to grow they
have to embrace modern society. It costs them more to employ people;
to train people, bring them in and then do that all over again
than it does to work out ways in which they keep those folk.
Q34 Miss Kirkbride: You just answered
to Judy the question of compulsory equal pay audits, upon which
the Commission did not agree. In your opinion do you think progress
can be made unless they were brought in, without them?
Baroness Prosser: I think it is
interesting that the people who pressed most hard for compulsion
was the trade union group and actually within trade union organised
companies it is not such a problem, I do not think, because the
pay and grades are negotiated, it is much more transparent in
the union-organised workplaces. The areas where it is a problem
are areas where pay is not transparent, largely speaking right
at the top of law firms or city finance, those sorts of places,
over which the trade unions do not have any influence at all.
So I found that odd positioning. I do not think that those major
companies would ever make their systems transparent unless they
were forced to.
Q35 Miss Kirkbride: That is an interesting
point you have raised, is it not, because law firms, accountancy
firms are unlikely to be unionised, partly because of their structures
in partnerships and things, so who would do it and how would you
allow for the confidential commerciality, which is reasonable
in those circumstances, whilst reassuring the women staff that
they were being paid fairly in comparison to their peer group?
What mechanism could be used for those kinds of companies?
Baroness Prosser: Certainly the
major firms all have HR departments and pay systems that are computerised.
Q36 Miss Kirkbride: But who would
be in charge? How transparent then would that information be on
the issue of confidentiality?
Baroness Prosser: The mechanism
of conducting the review is not too tricky. What you would then
do with the information is the next step, of course, and I think
it is a bit of a stretch to say that these things are commercially
confidential. I would like to see that tested; I do not really
think that that could be seriously argued.
Q37 Miss Kirkbride: It might be tricky
if all these firms compete with one another, they might not necessarily
be keen on the other companies knowing their pay structures?
Baroness Prosser: Of course what
they have at the moment, if you look at law firms, they all have
the same problem, that women leave. So they all know that it is
a big issue, and I guess under the surface that the most senior
lawyers at Clifford Chance will know what the senior lawyers at
Simmons are earning. These are quite small fields anyway, are
they not? I think the big problem for them is partly that it is
about who gets paid what, but more it is about the requirements
that are laid upon people who want to get to the top or who the
company wants to get to the top—24 hours a day is not too
much of an exaggeration really. If you go to the Clifford Chance
offices in Canary Wharf you could move in there and live there
for six months—you would not be deprived of anything, everything
is available.
Q38 Miss Kirkbride: Just bring your
toothbrush.
Baroness Prosser: Yes, and they
expect people to spend hours and hours and women either cannot
or do not want to do that. But they are losing a lot of talent.
Clifford Chance is one of the exemplars and has joined us as an
exemplar.
Q39 Miss Kirkbride: What are they
doing, out of interest?
Baroness Prosser: I do not know
to be truthful and I cannot answer that in detail, but hopefully
when we have the exemplars' conference we will be able to learn
more.
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