Chamber and committees

Table 1 shows the number and proportions of all in employment, employed in the private and public sectors for the UK and countries:

Table 1: Public and private sector employment (headcount), UK and countries, Q4 2016

Note: Not seasonally adjusted

The definition of public sector is in line with National Accounting principles

Sources: Public sector employment, UK: Dec 2016, (ONS) (Table 6, Table 7)

https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/publicsectorpersonnel/bulletins/publicsectoremployment/dec2016

The Scottish Government does not hold this information.

However, according to the Scottish Living Wage Accreditation Initiative, there are 469 Scotland headquartered accredited Living Wage employers in the Private Sector. They estimate that these organisations employ approximately 118,000 people and that, of these, at least 3000 employees have benefited from an uplift in their wages as a result of accreditation.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde continue to have access to orthopaedic activity at the Golden Jubilee National Hospital. In 2017-18 Greater Glasgow and Clyde have been allocated 560 joint replacements and 170 non joint procedures at the Golden Jubilee for their patients.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-08758 on 8 May 2017. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

The information requested is already in the public domain in the table entitled Business Pledge – Statistical Overview – February 2017, a copy of which has been placed in the Scottish Parliament’s Reference Centre (Bib number 57653). This material is updated and published on a quarterly basis. There are currently 350 companies listed on the Pledge website.

The Scottish Government uses various official data sources to assess these issues

The use of reported Zero Hours Contracts in Scotland’s labour market is lower than in the UK as whole. (Scotland 2.2%, UK2.8%).  

The ONS publish information on Zero hours contracts available at the following link: https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/pe.opleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/articles/contractsthatdonotguaranteeaminimumnumberofhours/mar2017

In 2016 Scotland remains the best performing of all four UK countries with the highest proportion of employees paid the Living Wage or more (79.9%) and the number of Scots-based Accredited Living Wage Employers is now over 785.

Information on earnings and the living wage are, sourced from the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings and published by the Scottish Government at: http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Labour-Market/Earnings

In the period, Jan 2016-Dec 2016 130,000 employees held temporary positions (5.8% of all employees), a decrease from 136,000 (6% of all employees) in Jan 2015–Dec 2015. Information on temporary employment is published by the ONS in Table HI11-3 published at: https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/datasets/headlinelabourforcesurveyindicatorsforscotlandhi11

The most recently published estimates for the 2016 gender pay gap for Scotland based on median hourly earnings (excluding overtime) show that :

The overall gender pay gap for full-time and part-time workers in Scotland is 15.6%.

For part-time workers, the gender pay gap is -9.6%.

For full-time workers, the gender pay gap is 6.2%.

Source: Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, ONS

Note: The gender pay gap is calculated as the difference between men’s and women’s median hourly earnings as a percentage of men’s median hourly earnings. A negative figure indicates that female earnings exceed male earnings

Estimates of the gender pay gap for all and full-time employees, can be found on the Scottish Government web site at the following location:

http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Labour-Market/Earnings/ASHE-SGTables

Table 2.1: Gender Pay Gap – Median Full-time Hourly Earnings (excluding overtime) by Country, 1997-2016

Table 3.1: Gender Pay Gap – Median Hourly Earnings (excluding overtime) - All employees by Country 1997-2016.

The gender pay gap, based on hourly earnings (excluding overtime) for part-time employees is published by the Office for National Statistics and can be found at the following location:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/adhocs/006269annualsurveyofhoursandearningsashegenderpaygapbycountryapril1997to2016

The Scottish Government will abolish fees for employment tribunals once it is clear how the transfer of powers and responsibilities will work.

In line with commitments in both the Labour Market Strategy and the 2016 Programme for Government, we have established the Employment Tribunals Stakeholders’ Forum, which will help frame how we can best use our new powers around employment tribunals to ensure that any new system in Scotland, based on the abolition of fees, will meet the needs of employees, businesses and society.

The UK Government’s Public Sector Gender Pay Gap Reporting Regulations came into force on 31 March 2017. The Regulations allow public authorities 12 months to publish their gender pay gap information. Until public authorities have undertaken this process and the results are published and can be evaluated, it is not possible to say whether this reporting mechanism will give a comprehensive and robust picture of the public sector gender pay gap. The Scottish Government will consider the results from the first year’s reporting, and working with the Equality and Human Rights Commission, factor this into the areas covered in the planned review of the Public Sector Equality Duty Scottish Specific Duties, which will begin later this year.

I have written to UK Government Ministers seeking clarification on timing and to date have not received proposals outlining when responsibility for the management and operation of the employment tribunal will transfer.

In the meantime discussions between the UK Government and the Scottish Government are continuing.