Received from: CSP
The gender pay gap persists across UK public services. This inequity significantly impacts CSP members and the wider public sector, with women making up the majority of the NHS workforce.
Government has a stated ambition of permanently closing the gender pay gap. But a clear action plan is needed to achieve this in public services.
While women perform the majority of unwaged domestic labour, the gender pay gap will continue to exist if workers experience difficulty accessing flexible working; or encounter a taboo of working at senior levels on a part-time basis.
The scale of the challenge is not fully clear. Gender pay gap reporting remains inconsistent and inaccessible, despite being a duty under the PSED since 2017.
Congress calls for the TUC to work with government to:
i. establish a cross-departmental mission delivery board, responsible for developing an overarching gender pay gap action plan for public services; and charged with demanding, collating and scrutinising public organisations’ gender pay gap reports
ii. challenge the status quo of senior leadership positions in public services being ‘full-time’ roles
iii. facilitate career progression for individuals with caring responsibilities
iv. widen the PSED to include a duty to report on how public sector employers are eliminating the barriers for women to progress in the workplace
v. when conducting its review of parental leave, introduce a dedicated period of leave for fathers and non-birth partners, paid at occupational rates of pay – to rebalance gender differences in unwaged work.
Chartered Society of Physiotherapy
AMENDMENT
At the end of the first paragraph, add:
“Agenda for Change was established to ensure equal pay across the NHS, but roles excluded from this pay scale are those most likely to be filled by men: doctors, dentists, and managers. Caring professions are universally undervalued and underpaid, with female-dominated professions being left furthest behind.”
Royal College of Podiatry