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Chamber and committees

Question reference: S5W-01633

  • Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
  • Date lodged: 26 July 2016
  • Current status: Answered by Derek Mackay on 23 August 2016

Question

To ask the Scottish Government what the (a) black and minority ethnic and (b) gender pay gap was among its staff expressed in (i) percentage and (ii) real-terms prices in each year since 2011-12, broken down by (A) age and (B) directorate.


Answer

We remain committed to increasing the diversity of our people within the organisation and diversity and equality considerations continue to underpin all of our employment policies and practices. Ethnicity is self-declared by Scottish Government staff and has not been disclosed by 15% of our staff and as such we may not have the full picture. The following table shows the mean salary pay gap for those of known ethnicity on 6 April each year in the Scottish Government main staff group, broken down by age group. We are unable to provide a breakdown by directorate as changes to the directorate structure over time make comparisons invalid. In addition, we have excluded senior civil service as this category is too small to disaggregate without potentially identifying individual staff members. The pay gap information provided is the average figure from across all pay bands and is reflective of the distribution of staff across the organisation. We actively publish pay gap information in our Equality Outcomes and Mainstreaming report which includes a breakdown by each individual pay band. This demonstrates that our policy towards equality of pay for work of equal value is delivered by our pay policy. Notable factors contributing to gaps are that new staff members start on lower points of the progression scale and that males are more likely than females to work past 60 in Band C. The tables show the pay gaps, with positive numbers indicating where black or minority ethnic / female staff have a pay lead and negative numbers indicating where non-black or minority ethnic / male staff have a pay lead. The table is available in the Scottish Parliament’s Information Centre under BIB number 58140.