Written question WQ82536

Our aspiration is for a gender equal Wales and this is backed up by actions we are taking to advance equality and remove barriers against women’s participation in the economy, public and social life. Whilst the gender pay gap in Wales has narrowed significantly in recent years, continued action is required to improve the pace of change. Our actions include providing childcare support, tackling low pay and discrimination, creating training opportunities that facilitate progression and supporting women into non-traditional careers. We are also working to introduce a pay gap milestone into our National Milestones.

We are committed to identifying actions to address gender (and race and disability) pay gaps and we will link this to the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) review. The review was paused during the pandemic but will start again this year, building upon work we have already begun to improve the gathering and publication of employment and other equalities data. The findings of the ongoing research into Strengthening Equalities and Human Rights in Wales, due to report shortly, will be an important source of evidence for the PSED review work and the Gender Equality Review will influence the direction we will take in strengthening compliance with the PSED.

More broadly, addressing the gender pay gap is a part of our approach to social partnership and fair work. Our social partnership approach provides us with the opportunity to engage employers and persuade them of the benefits of collecting data to track and understand levels of workforce equality, diversity and inclusion, and encourage them to introduce more transparency and action to address pay gaps.

Working across the Welsh Government, we are seeking to exercise the power of the public purse and our social partnership approach to promote fair work practices across the public and private sectors, drive changes in cultures and behaviours, and improve access to training and progression opportunities.