Equal Opportunities Committee

Meeting date: Thursday, June 13, 2013

Official Report 447KB pdf

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Gender Pay Gap

Agenda item 4 is on the gender pay gap. Members will see that paper 2 suggests several options: that we give further consideration to the gender pay gap; that we give further consideration to occupational segregation; or that we take any other action that members may suggest.

Sorry, I am a bit lost because I did not receive an agenda and papers for today’s meeting.

Sorry. Douglas Thornton will rush round to provide you with a copy.

You will see from paper 2, which is on the gender pay gap, that the recommendations suggest three options that we might consider. Do members have any thoughts on how we should take the matter forward?

My view is that we should give further consideration to the gender pay gap but also look at occupational segregation, because I think that it is difficult to separate one from the other. My personal view is that we should look at both issues.

I think that we should fold this issue into the follow-up response that we get to the report on our women and work inquiry. Clearly, the issues are similar and the response to our report will interact quite substantially with the issue of occupational segregation and, probably in no small part, with the gender pay gap. We could decide to give further consideration to the gender pay gap but decide at a future date exactly what that further consideration should be.

I agree in principle that we should consider the gender pay gap alongside the response to our women and work report, but I worry that key issues relating to the gender pay gap might be lost in a bigger discussion. Therefore, this perhaps has to go both ways. I think that the gender pay gap should be a specific priority that we look at in the short term. As we have heard from a number of witnesses in our women and work inquiry, the gender pay gap is an absolutely critical consideration for a number of key issues.

I agree. The clerk will correct me if I am wrong, but I think that we agreed that we would pick up the gender pay gap as a separate issue. In a discussion that we had a while ago, we talked about looking specifically at the issue of the gender pay gap. It would be hard to include the gender pay gap as part of a bigger inquiry because it is such a big issue.

Therefore, I agree with what Alex Johnstone has said—yes, that might not happen again.

I commend that approach, because I think that the gender pay gap is a big issue. I also commend the paper from Wladyslaw Mejka. We have a lot of information that will need to be married together, but I think that Marco Biagi is right that our consideration of the issue can be informed by the Government’s response to our women and work report.

Do you disagree with considering the gender pay gap separately?

No. I commend the approach that you suggested. I am just saying that I agree that we should wait for the Government’s response to our women and work inquiry, because that will inform our thinking along with these papers.

Yes, it would not be our intention to do anything before we get the Government’s response to our women and work inquiry. However, we discussed looking at the gender pay gap issue in isolation, because it is such a big issue. That is why we have the paper. Do members have any other views?

Convener, before I comment, let me just apologise for arriving late.

I am very suspicious of some of the figures in the paper that show that, apparently, Glasgow has a negative gender pay gap. However, I am sure that we can look at those in due course.

Yes, some of the figures are quite startling.

I think that arm’s-length external organisations are a factor.

I agree that we should wait for the Government’s response before we discuss the gender pay gap issue.

We will wait on the Government’s response to our women and work inquiry and then give further consideration to whether we need a short-term inquiry on the gender pay gap so that we can get more evidence. I see members nodding. Are we agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

Excellent. Our next meeting, on Thursday 20 June, will be held in private as it will include consideration of our forward work programme and our approach to forthcoming legislation on marriage and civil partnerships.

09:08 Meeting continued in private until 10:36.