Examination of Witnesses (Questions 220-239)
RT HON
HARRIET HARMAN,
QC, MP, MS JANICE
SHERSBY AND
MS ANN-MARIE
FIELD
29 OCTOBER 2007
Q220 Chairman: In capacities outwith
this particular inquiry this Committee keeps getting contradictory
messages back when we visit Brussels and when we have people before
us on what you can and cannot do, so if you are able to get any
clarity on it that would be greatly welcomed.
Ms Harman: To finish your point,
Claire, if they were asked to do it by the public sector procurer
and they did not do it, then they would not get the contract.
Q221 Mrs Curtis-Thomas: But they
are not required to do it at the moment.
Ms Harman: But if you make it
a requirement of the tendering process by a particular public
sector procurer, if the public sector procurer says, "I am
only going to contract with people who promise to do X, Y and
Z or who offer to do A, B and C", then it is not down to
the private sector person who is tendering because they will not
get their foot in the door because they will not have complied
with the tender requirements.
Mrs Curtis-Thomas: Minister, with respect,
there is a cost associated to that and sometimes the cost is prohibitive,
and not only the cost but the lack of services or lack of facilities
which women can provide, which means that you may put that clause
into a contract but it is almost impossible for the contractor
to deliver it. At that point they say, "Thanks ever so much
but we can't do this", and as an intelligent procurer you
will go, "No, okay, I understand that. Thanks very much.
We'll go with what we have". That is the reality of procurement
for the ODA and the GLA, that they would like to do it but there
is insufficient supply in the market to satisfy the demand. Until
we have a legislative programme put in place which sends a bigger
signal across the marketplace that we require these services,
we require specific gender services, you will not get them, there
simply is not enough impetus in the market to pull it forward.
Q222 Chairman: We look forward with
great interest to seeing your future deliberations on it. Can
I go back quickly to what Janice was saying about the Public Service
Agreement number 15, of which I have a copy. The Women and Equality
Unit put forward the previous Gender Equality Public Service Agreement
in 2002, revamped in 2004. What happened to it? Did it have any
effect?
Ms Shersby: It is still being
worked on and there has been progress made. It was a very differently
constructed Public Service Agreement. I think it had about 19
different indicators across a whole range of activities. Some
of those indicators have shown progress, others have not shown
as much progress as we would want, and at the end of the period
we will report on its progress. We are still working on it, but
the new PSA is more focused on a limited number of indicators
and one of these focuses specifically on the gender pay gap.
Q223 Chairman: It does supersede
that presumably because that is the guidance against which the
Comprehensive Spending Review and all of that has been set and
it also crosses all of the areas of inequality. Does that mean
we lose our previous 19 objectives? We had one great thing which
we did as much as we could but did not finish and now that goes
down the swanny because we have got something which has taken
over from it?
Ms Shersby: No. The Gender PSA
was for the existing Spending Review period, the Equalities PSA
is for the new performance period. It will not supersede it precisely,
it will follow it.
Q224 Chairman: As we know, one of
our difficulties is all the targets and objectives we are trying
to set are mostly very long-term, we are talking about things
which are difficult to shift. Do you consider there is a difficulty
in chopping and changing every three years with a different set
of objectives, a different set of targets and, what is more, now
having to subsume it within a broader PSA covering the other areas
of inequality?
Ms Shersby: There are two things
to say. One relates to the Equalities PSA. In choosing the gender
pay gap as one of its indicators, as we have discussed, it will
require us to focus on a whole range of different areas in order
to make movement on that one indicator. What we have tried to
do in the new PSA is to choose good indicators, indicators which
in order to influence will require us to take action with a range
of departments and partners across a range of measures rather
than looking at a whole range of 19 different indicators. The
second thing to say is, perhaps, this new Equalities PSA will
sit alongside action in other departments on equality embedded
within their own PSAs. For example, in education there will be
activity in relation to ethnic minority children in education.
We have not had to take everything into our own PSA, there is
some activity on equality right across Government in other PSAs
as well.
Q225 Miss Kirkbride: The Towards
a Fairer Future report and the steering group which came out
of it was expected to develop the gender equality check by early
summer 2007 with the roll-out intended for now. Has it?
Ms Field: Yes, we have developed
a tool. I chaired a steering group which had membership from the
CBI, TUC, all of the people basically who the Women and Work Commission
recommended should be involved in it. We have developed a tool
to be piloted and I hope it is going to be piloted on the Business
Link website next month. It is specifically for small and medium-sized
enterprises, basically companies that do not have their own large
HR departments to carry out these sorts of checks. It is quite
a simple, straightforward tool. It is in three phases. There is
a business case for why you should do this, then there is a series
of questions—they take about ten or 15 minutes to work through,
so hopefully that would not put too many employers off—and
then there is guidance for what you might do if you find there
is a problem. We are going to pilot this with the help of the
CBI and the British Chamber of Commerce for about three months
and hopefully tweak it to make sure it is really fit for purpose
and then it will go out live on the Business Link website.
Q226 Miss Kirkbride: That is your
first idea to come up with as to how to increase pay transparency
with a view to other ideas or do you have other ideas you are
working on?
Ms Field: As the Minister said,
that is something which is still under discussion as far as the
Equality Bill is concerned, but we want to start making some progress
with the equality check tool before then.
Q227 Miss Kirkbride: Can the Minister
give us some idea of her own thinking on whether or not private
companies should have compulsory pay audits for gender?
Ms Harman: I think transparency
is important because that generates the ability for people to
reflect in their own workplace as to whether or not the system
is working fairly, so that is certainly the case.
Q228 Miss Kirkbride: Can we be clear
on what transparency means because obviously there is going to
be a question of confidentiality of salaries. Are we talking about
transparency in pay? What transparency are you offering there,
that the average pay for women in this workplace is X and for
men it is Y, or are we just saying that payrolls should be available
for inspection by employees?
Ms Harman: Obviously there is
a question of personal privacy and, therefore, that might affect
very small firms if what you did was look at what the average
pay for a man is and what the average pay for a woman is in a
particular firm, but when it is not a very small place then I
think one bit of information which is not currently available
on request is the question of what is the average pay for men
and what is the average pay for women in a particular enterprise
or organisation. That is one end of the scale, which is just the
average pay for a man and the average pay for a woman in a particular
organisation. Then there is the other end of the scale, which
is very comprehensive job evaluations and a complete review of
all the elements of every bit of work that is done in any particular
job and a kind of revamped job evaluation scheme.
Q229 Miss Kirkbride: Are you personally
in favour of compulsory pay audits in the private sector?
Ms Harman: I do think it is important
that there is more openness, I would say that.
Q230 Miss Kirkbride: Openness rather
than compulsion?
Ms Harman: You can have compulsion
to openness.
Q231 Miss Kirkbride: Yes, but they
do not mean the same thing though, do they?
Ms Harman: Yes, they do.
Q232 Miss Kirkbride: One gives you
information but it does not all means, whereas the other could.
Ms Harman: The question is what
produces the end. Does giving people information that they can
then take forward in their own workplace, because it opens up
something which is previously not available publicly, the best
tool, or is the best tool having somebody in completely reviewing
the whole thing and then saying, "Actually, we've done a
job evaluation and, by the way, everybody is completely fairly
evaluated", which could still leave you with a big pay gap.
Q233 Miss Kirkbride: Obviously it
begs further questions, but I think they will be covered in other
questions as to what tools you will give people to enforce more
equal pay if they know they are not being paid equally, and we
will come on to that later.
Ms Harman: As I say, this discussion
comes when we are in the middle of considering the consultation
responses and have not published our response to those consultations,
which will be by way of what we think will need to be legislated.
That is the stage at which this has come. I am not planning to
be opaque about it, but the Government has not taken a position
yet which I can then report to you. You asking me what my personal
view is is a very tempting suggestion, but obviously what really
matters is what is the Government's position and what is the Government
going to do by way of legislation or by way of not legislating
and that is obviously what we are focusing on.
Miss Kirkbride: Minister, I am sure you
have a considerable influence!
Q234 Chairman: Can we pick up on
discrimination law, but you may or may not be able to answer any
of these questions. Most of the witnesses we have had have thought
that equal pay legislation is failing. We have got this massive
number of equal pay cases and a number of examples of ways of
dealing with it have been brought forward. At the moment, do you
have any views at all on some of the suggestions, like having
hypothetical comparators, if you have got occupational segregation
you cannot compare yourself; representative actions, those two?
Are you able to say anything on your thinking on those at the
moment? Are some of those proposals which have been put forward
for toughening up legislation issues you are looking at?
Ms Harman: We are looking at them
because there has been a weight of representations on them with
a lot of strong argument behind them, but I am unable to say whether
or not the Government is going to take them forward. The consultation
process has evoked responses on both those points.
Q235 Chairman: You also just said
you were talking to John Healey about the local government situation,
which is difficult, can you tell us any more about whether you
are in a position to be able to assist with unravelling it?
Ms Harman: As you will know, with
the Treasury, John Healey has just issued an extra £500 million
of equal pay capitalisation to 46 authorities available in order
to help those local authorities that have not yet settled their
equal pay back-claims, but I think we need to get more information
from local government as to exactly what the amount which yet
remains to be settled is. I know John Healey, together with my
deputy, Barbara Follett, is looking forward to meeting the Local
Government Association to make sure we have proper up-to-date
information about how many claims are outstanding, how many authorities
have yet to settle, the extent of the gap currently remains after
the £500 million is made available and what sort of progress
we are going to make. I think we are expecting to have a much
clearer idea when that information is there. Obviously this is
individual local authority's responsibility but the Government
is very committed to ensuring the situation is sorted out and
we do not have unsettled back-claims and unions feeling unable
to negotiate because the situation is not settled.
Chairman: I know you are in a rush, but
if I can ask Roger to very quickly touch on the equality duties;
that is a very important aspect.
Q236 Roger Berry: Can I start off
with the new public sector gender equality duty. What is being
done to monitor government departments in relation to that duty?
Ms Field: The EOC did some initial
work looking at the gender equality schemes which have been drawn
up. I have to say, they were not that impressed with some of them,
although they did hold some of them up as examples of good practice.
Q237 Roger Berry: Which are the ones
they were not impressed with?
Ms Field: A few of the government
departments, I think. I will not name any.
Ms Harman: Go on!
Ms Field: They did name the London
Development Agency as being an example of good practice, which
I think is good because obviously the RDAs have got a role to
play in this.
Q238 Roger Berry: Cutting to the
chase, historically some government departments have been very
good and some have been notoriously bad. Historically, the MoD
has dragged its feet on gender, disability and orientation. It
has always been at the back of the field on every single equalities
issue. Can we have confidence that given this new public sector
gender equality duty—okay, it has only been there for six
months but it is important it is there—there will be serious
monitoring of all government departments to ensure they take it
seriously?
Ms Harman: I think the answer
to that is yes and the key thing is there is not a requirement
for a policy but there is a requirement for some outcome. What
we do not want to do is simply have been generating massive exercises
in policy formulation. What we need to do is make sure there is
a bottom line of outcome which is monitored and progress against
that is monitored. I think that is a question of being very clear
and quite simplified in it, so that it is not all lost in a thicket
of every single complexity, which then means that no progress
is made about anything. That has bedevilled progress in this area
in quite a lot of respects. It is an opportunity for people who
are not really committed to it, and I do not mean it malevolently,
but just to get bogged down in discussions of policies and that
then gives the objective a bad name.
Q239 Roger Berry: The Green Paper,
the Discrimination Law Review, was suggesting a single public
sector equality duty which, as we all know, was criticised by
a number of strands in the equalities debate. Can we assume that
one of the things which is being looked at again is whether it
is sensible to subsume the gender equality duty, the race equality
duty, the disability equality duty and so forth into one single
equality duty? Is that being reviewed because it might be difficult
to measure performance if there is just one single public sector
equality duty?
Ms Harman: The last thing we want
is to create any sort of sense that the proposals for legislation
represented in some strands a weakening of duties and obligations.
That being the case, and people being relatively clear about what
the existing strands and duties stand for, then it seems to me
there is no point, for the sake of it, putting everything into
one single duty if we can keep a clear focus on the individual
strands and keep those duties. I do not think there is any point
for the sake of it. Although there are some very cross-cutting
issues, there are also some issues which are not cross-cutting
and are particular to disability or particular to race or particular
to gender. The answer to your question is we have taken on board
those proposals which have come forward from the consultation
that say people are unhappy with putting it all into one in case
it involves a sense of weakening of some of them within that.[2]
2 Footnote by Witness: GEO are looking again
at the structure of the duty in the light of the consultation,
to ensure that bringing the duties together into a single duty
does not result in weakening existing duties. Back
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