Gender Action Plan Implementation Group: Meeting Notes
3.15 pm, Thursday 25 June 2020 - Microsoft Teams Meeting
In attendance:
Karen Martin (Chairperson)
Maria Bannon
Louise Close
James Gilsenan
Kate McCullough
Roisin Mooney
Raymond Russell
Richard Stewart
1. Update on Stonewall project and Diversity NI
Karen Martin outlined the background to the Assembly Commission’s participation in the Stonewall project. She said that due to resource pressures in both the HR Office and the Equality and Good Relations Unit, very little progress had been made since the last meeting. Progress to date had focused on an initial review of HR policies in the staff handbook to identify, for example, where changes are necessary to ensure gender neutrality and initial work on the key principles for the transgender policy. It is hoped that further progress can be made when resource pressures are addressed.
Maria Bannon said that the Commission’s involvement in Diversity NI dovetails with its participation in the Stonewall project and that she has had meetings with both groups in recent months. She said that involvement in these projects would help to inform the development of a transgender policy. She also highlighted that, as with the Stonewall project, resource pressures are still to be addressed.
2. QUB Research
Maria provided a brief update on the Secretariat’s participation in the QUB PhD Project ‘Gender equality in the UK and Germany: HR Management in light of conflicting constitutional logics’. She said that all the interviews with Secretariat staff had been completed but that the interviews in Germany had been delayed because of the Covid-19 outbreak.
3. Staff survey – gender breakdown
Karen informed the group that Barbara Love had completed a research paper presenting the findings of the 2019 secretariat staff survey disaggregated by gender. She said that the findings showed differences in perception between male and female respondents around issues such as internal communications and working relationships. The comments from the survey have been requested from ICG to see whether any specific gender issues have been raised by respondents.
Louise Close said that internal communications could play a role in shaping perceptions and suggested that the new communications officer, Gabrielle Cairns, be invited to join the gender group.
4. Six-monthly update to SMG
SMG has approved the March 2020 six-monthly update, which included RaISe analysis of gender balance of those presenting at SMG and Commission meetings between 2016-17 and 2018-19. The report concluded that, during this period, a higher proportion of females than males presented to SMG, although it was noted that this was largely due to the nature of the role, for example, HR and Finance. However, the report warned that caution should be exercised in making any inferences dues to the small numbers involved. The full update and RaISe reports are available on AssISt.
5. AOB
The group discussed a range of issues to do with home working during lockdown.
Louise wondered whether females were more likely to take on the bulk of caring responsibilities when working from home, and highlighted the difficulties parents faced in balancing work and caring responsibilities.
Maria mentioned that the Equality Commission had recently published guidance on covid-19 and the workplace, which is available on its website.
Karen noted that, while the current home working arrangement is a temporary measure, it may be that there would be an increase in staff wishing to work at home on a more permanent basis. She noted that home working is already included in the flexible working policy but said that HR Office would in due course consider whether a separate policy might be required.
Ray Russell said that the findings of the covid-19 wellbeing and communications survey issued to staff during lockdown showed that home working was very popular and that many staff were nervous about returning to Parliament Buildings too soon.
Louise said that, from an engagement perspective, and with the right technical support, there was an opportunity to consider different ways of hosting events and meetings. In particular, she mentioned that the virtual tour worked very well. She also mentioned the importance of consulting IT in the development of any home working policy.
James Gilsenan suggested that, rather than conduct a single snapshot survey, it would be useful to conduct a further staff survey in another month or so to track whether people’s experience of home working had changed. He also suggested that it would be a positive move to press ahead with a working from home policy now rather than waiting until people have returned to the building and possibly reverted to their previous work practices.
Kate McCullough said it would be useful to consider the age profile of Commission staff and the number of people in the ‘at risk’ category.
Karen said that she would pass the group’s comments on to the covid-19 response group for its members to consider.
Action: Karen to feed the group’s comments back to the covid-19 response group.
