Question reference: S5W-35777
- Asked by: Gillian Martin, MSP for Aberdeenshire East, Scottish National Party
- Date lodged: 5 March 2021
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Current status: Initiated by the Scottish Government. Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 8 March 2021
Question
To ask the Scottish Government what progress it has made in advancing the Fair Work Agenda, including with tackling the gender and disability employment gaps.
Answer
I am delighted to announce that today, on International Women’s Day, we have published progress reports on our Fair Work , A Fairer Scotland for Women Gender Pay Gap , and A Fairer Scotland for Disabled People - Employment action plans . Creating fair, inclusive and diverse workplaces is a key theme which runs through and connects this suite of action plans.
Over the past year we have seen the devastating impact the coronavirus pandemic has had on employers and workers – particularly on certain groups such as disabled and minority ethnic people as well as women. This demonstrates why Fair Work is more important than ever and why we must keep Fair Work at the heart of Scotland’s economic recovery and renewal.
While there is much work to be done our annual reports show that despite these unprecedented circumstances, the Scottish Government remains steadfast in our ambition for Scotland to be a leading Fair Work Nation by 2025.
Good progress has already been made: we have made good headway in implementing Fair Work First and we have achieved our headline goal to reduce the gender pay gap by 2021. We have also made steady progress towards our ambition to at least halve the disability employment gap – however, emerging evidence of the impact of COVID-19 indicates that the gap is starting to widen again, although it remains lower than in previous years.