Is it time for the private sector to match the public sector on gender equality?

By Rohan Malik, EY, UK&I Managing Partner – Government & Infrastructure

?The hard work and dedication of public sector workers has quite rightly been celebrated during the pandemic, not least in the recent Civil Service Awards and now it’s time to recognise the sector again on International Women’s Day.

The reason? The public sector in general and the UK civil service in particular, has long led the way on gender equality. In fact, you would have to go back to the millennium to find a time when there were fewer women than men in the civil service. But perhaps the real progress has been in more senior roles. In 1996, just 17% of senior civil servants were women but by 2018 that figure had risen to 43%1. The gender pay gap is also narrowing – down by around seven percent since 2017 – and is markedly lower than in the private sector.

Gender balance doesn’t just happen

You won’t be surprised to hear this didn’t happen by itself. While to some extent it reflects the changes in broader society, it is largely the product of a lot of hard work, planning and policy. As with nearly all successful change programmes, it’s also integrated into the purpose of an organisation. In this case it’s quite simple really - if the civil service is to deliver services fairly to all UK citizens, it needs to reflect UK society. Or, as The 2017 Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy puts it, “When people from diverse backgrounds are involved in creating the public services we all rely on, we get better services that work for everyone”.

A clear link with purpose accelerates change

This link to purpose is also crucial here at EY. As UK Chair Hywel Ball (EY LLP) explains in a recent article, How business can help create a more inclusive society, our organisation relies on the talents of our people, making diversity and inclusion (D&I) a strategic as well as societal imperative. That means more than just hitting diversity recruitment targets, it means building a culture that enables those diverse talents to flourish. Doing so has benefits for individuals and society as a whole, but also – crucially – for the organisation itself.

On a personal level, this makes me proud to work for EY and within the public sector, where even outside the UK during my time with the World Bank, I’ve enjoyed operating in a relatively gender-balanced environment.

International Women’s Day

Yet, as International Women’s Day so powerfully reminds us, there is still more to be done. It challenges us to forge a gender-equal world. Celebrate women's achievement. Raise awareness against bias. Take action for equality.

The theme for IWD 2021 is #ChooseToChallenge. So, what do I choose to challenge? Well, one current area of focus is women in technology. Again, while this is very much about righting the wrongs that have kept women out of tech jobs, it is also about getting better collective results for all. Digital technology is an increasingly crucial element of government, as discussed in our recent report Return to the past or nurture a digital future?. D&I is doubly important here because we not only need a wider pool of talent to draw from to achieve this objective, we need diversity of thinking to prevent the risk of bias being built into new systems.

To this end, on a personal level, I have been mentoring women to help them realise their ambitions in tech and, organisation-wide, we are targeting barriers with initiatives such as a recent EY event focused on challenging non-inclusive language in technology. Awards are also an important way to recognise and celebrate progress, whether through our own EY International Women’s Day Awards or the UK Civil Service Diversity & Inclusion Award, which I was proud to present (alongside Civil Service Chief Operating Officer Alex Chisholm) last week to recognise the work of a truly outstanding project.

Closing the gap to build back fairer

But perhaps the real challenge ahead is for the private sector to catch up and close the gap. Here, we can definitely take hope from the way the pandemic has made the public more aware, and perhaps more demanding, of business’ role in society.

The government can also play its part because, having done so much to protect our lives and livelihoods during the pandemic, it will continue to play a key role as it invests in a post-pandemic future. This will see the public and private sectors working in step to build back better. By sharing and applying some of the strategies applied so successfully within the public sector, perhaps we can also build back fairer.