Feb. 29 2024
Source Page: Economic Evidence to the Pay Review Bodies: February 2024Found: Public sector regular pay growth does not yet fully capture the effect of all public sector pay awards
Feb. 06 2024
Source Page: AI Fairness Innovation Challenge winners announcedFound: Four winning projects to support AI firms working in higher education, healthcare, finance, and recruitment
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps his Department is taking to to help improve the performance of public sector research establishments.
Answered by Andrew Griffith - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Public sector research establishments are diverse organisations that deliver science and research for public good, often playing a vital role in critical infrastructure and public safety. The Government’s response, published in November 2023, to the Independent Review of the UK’s Research, Development and Innovation Organisational Landscape sets out ambitious commitments to support PSREs to maximise their capabilities and performance. Commitments include raising awareness of PSREs, reducing barriers for collaborative working across PSREs and understanding challenges within recruitment and retention for PSREs. This work is underway, and progress will be reported through the Science and Technology Framework implementation plans.
Report Mar. 22 2024
Committee: Public Accounts CommitteeFound: Twenty-Third Report - Civil service workforce: Recruitment, pay and performance management HC 452 Report
Asked by: Lennon, Monica (Scottish Labour - Central Scotland)
Question
To ask the Scottish Government whether it can provide an update on its work to make Scotland "a leading Fair Work Nation by 2025".
Answered by Martin, Gillian - Minister for Energy and the Environment
Scotland is making great strides towards becoming a leading Fair Work nation.
The number of accredited Real Living Wage employers is up from 14 in 2014 to over 3,500 in 2023. That’s proportionately 5 times as many than the rest of the UK, and some 65,000 workers in Scotland have had a pay rise as a result of accreditation, making a real impact for people in the lowest paid jobs.
Our support contributes to 89.9% of employees aged 18 and over in Scotland being paid at least the real Living Wage (2023 data), higher than Wales 87.1%, England 87.0%, NI 84.4%, and the UK overall 87.1%.
Building on the work of the Fair Work Convention we’re pressing forward with sectoral agreements in Adult Social Care and Construction, as well as Retail with to help put those sectors and their workforces on a sustainable footing for the long term.
The median gender pay gap has continued on a long-term downward trend and has now reached a record low of 1.7% in 2023 for full time employees in Scotland, lower than the overall UK gap of 7.7%.
The Disability Employment Gap fell further to 30.2 percentage points in 2023 – a decrease from 31.9 p.p. in 2022 and the lowest it has been since our baseline year in 2016 when it was 37.4 p.p. There is still work to do but this suggests that we are on track to achieve our ambition to reach 18.7 p.p by 2038.
Fair Work First principles were applied to some £4bn public funds since 2019, and in 1 July 2023 we took this further by adding the requirement that all grant recipients awarded a public sector grant pay at least the real Living Wage and provide appropriate channels for effective workers’ voice.
Through the Workplace Equality Fund we focused on providing financial support for employers to address longstanding barriers in the labour market that particular priority groups experience, including disabled people, women, racialised minorities and older workers. In 2023-24 the WEF investment was almost £600,000 across 10 projects, bringing the total spent to over £3.2m on 71 projects since 2018 [1] . This year we are evaluating the effectiveness of the WEF to inform future interventions.
In financial years 2020-21 and 2023-24, we invested £1.2 m in the Apt Public Social Partnership (PSP)which worked to improve the recruitment and retention of disabled people by developing and testing different types of support for employers. The PSP engaged with employers in the private and third sectors, with a particular focus on SMEs throughout Scotland. An independent evaluation of the PSP’s impact will be commissioned in 2024-25. Employers involved in the partnership to date have reported benefits such as improved recruitment and retention processes, increased confidence in having conversations about employment with disabled people, and increased awareness about the benefits of a diverse workforce.
We have repeatedly voiced our opposition to legislation at Westminster that undermines workers’ rights, including the Trade Union Act 2016, the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses (Amendment) Regulations 2022, hire and rehire, and the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023.
We have been proud to support pay deals for public sector workers that reflect the vital jobs that they do. Last year pay deals were around £800 million greater than planned and our total expenditure on public sector pay is now around £25 billion – over half of our fiscal resource. On average public sector pay in Scotland is around 6% more than the rest of the UK.
[1] Total investment in WEF projects since 2018 is £3,194,500
Mar. 28 2024
Source Page: UK Export Finance Public Sector Equality Duty Compliance: 2022-23Found: UK Export Finance Public Sector Equality Duty Compliance: 2022-23
Feb. 12 2024
Source Page: Cross Justice Working Group on Race Data and Evidence minutes: September 2023Found: ”, around the public sector in general and the justice sector more specifically.
Correspondence May. 07 2024
Committee: Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee (Department: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)Found: Responding to such an event would call upon public and private sector vets to suspend business as usual
Written Evidence Mar. 12 2024
Committee: Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee (Department: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)Found: BVA’s key concerns include the recruitment and retention of vets, including wellbeing in the profession
Feb. 07 2024
Source Page: Charity Commission announces next Chief ExecutiveFound: His appointment follows a rigorous recruitment process which saw record numbers of applications for the