The gender pay gap in Scotland is decreasing. The full-time pay gap fell to 6.2% last year, which compares with a UK-wide gap of 9.4%. However, we are not complacent and closing the gender pay gap is a priority issue for the Scottish Government, both in terms of promoting equality and boosting economic growth.

Within our powers, we are ensuring greater pay transparency by lowering the threshold for listed public authorities to publish their gender pay gap and equal pay statements, from those with more than 150 employees to those with more than 20.

Our Labour Market Strategy also sets out our commitment to tackling inequalities around pay gaps and occupational segregation for equality groups, including women. Through this Strategy we will put in place new activity and funding to support the promotion and implementation of the Fair Work Framework and will provide £200,000 to Business in the Community Scotland to support the Scottish National Action Plan for Responsible Business.

Our focus will be on engaging with businesses of all sizes to encourage fair pay and workplace diversity best practices, through for example;

Increasing the number of employers paying the real Living Wage which will be of particular benefit to women who dominate low paid, part-time work,

Continuing to champion our Partnership for Change 50/50 by 2020 campaign, encouraging organisations and businesses from the private, third, and public sectors, to make a voluntary commitment to work towards gender balance on their boards by 2020,

Encouraging businesses to sign-up to the Scottish Business Pledge, a mutual pledge between business and government to ensure that prosperity, innovation, fairness and opportunity develop hand in hand in Scotland,

Providing £205,000 to 'Close the Gap' in 2016-17, to encourage and enable action to address the gender pay gap. This includes encouraging stakeholders to go through the Think Business, Think Equality toolkit, an online self-assessment tool for small and medium businesses who want to find out how their business can benefit from improved gender diversity.

The Pregnancy and Maternity working group that I chair, includes actions to improve access to advice and guidance for employers and supporting small businesses to develop improved pregnancy and maternity practices within their workplaces.

The measure used for the indicator is the pay gap in median hourly earnings (excluding overtime) between men and women working full-time in Scotland. The measure compares full-time workers as both men and women working part time earn less on average than full time employees, and a higher proportion of women work part time. The measure chosen matches the headline measure used by the Scottish Government, and the measure used by the Office for National Statistics for the UK and so allows comparison and provides consistency. Although there are no current plans to change the measure, the Scottish Government does plan to update the indicator page on the Scotland Performs website so that the latest figures and trends for all workers are provided as supplementary information.

Table 1 shows the gender pay gap for each of the 8 Scottish Parliamentary Regions.

Table 1: Gender pay gap by Scottish Parliamentary Region (workplace-based analysis)

Source: Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings 2016, ONS

Notes

- Covers employees aged 16+ on the PAYE system on adults rates and whose pay was not affected by absence.

- Gender pay gap is defined as the difference between men’s and women’s median full-time hourly earnings as a percentage of men’s median full-time hourly earnings.

As part of its responsibilities under the Scottish Ministers’ Equality Duty, the Scottish Government has undertaken a number of actions to help public sector authorities to better meet the reporting requirements of the Scottish specific equality duties.

In December 2013 four areas were identified where evidence showed public sector needed support most (http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2013/12/9408/downloads), and SNEIP (Scottish National Equality Improvement Project) was established to take these proposals for activity forward. A report outlining progress made in these four areas was published in December 2015: http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2015/12/2411/0.

The Scottish Government continues to work together with the public sector authorities through SNEIP, with particular focus being on identifying and sharing best practice. Last November the Scottish Government held the Equal Scotland Live conference to which representatives of all public authorities subject to the Scottish specific equality duties were invited. The event included over 20 learning sessions, as well as networking opportunities between the public authorities and with equality organisations.

The Scottish Government’s remit does not include monitoring how well the public sector authorities are meeting the requirements of the public sector equality duty. This remit falls to the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

For all procurements regulated under the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014, contracting authorities are required to consider how they could be used to improve social, economic and environmental well-being and act in a way to secure this.

For all procurements subject to EU Procurement Regulations, contracting authorities are additionally required to:

Have due regard to whether the award criteria should include considerations to enable it to better perform the equality duty.

When a public authority proposes to stipulate performance conditions in a contract or framework agreement, it must have due regard to whether the conditions should include considerations to enable it to better perform the equality duty.

We have continued to work with the Equality and Human Rights Commission on opportunities to promote equality within our procurement exercises. For example, within the Employability Support Services Fair Start Scotland specification wording has been included that highlights the Scottish Government’s ambitions to tackle inequality, and in particular Women’s Employment.

Scottish Enterprise (SE) and Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) have taken a number of actions in this area.

For example SE has published a Mainstreaming report which highlights our progress with our equality outcomes. Those which are particularly important for women include:

Increase the number of women, disabled, ethnic minority and young people employed in the growth sectors, particularly at leadership level;

Build the number of account managed, investee or other appropriate client companies led by women, ethnic minorities, young and disabled people;

Uptake of our services by companies operated and owned by under represented groups increasing

In addition, both SE and HIE are members of the steering group of Close the Gap and assisted with the design of their ‘Think Business, Think Equality’ diagnostic online toolkit. This is targeted at SMEs and companies are encouraged to use it via the Scottish Business Pledge website.

Glasgow Prestwick Airport operates on a wholly commercial basis and at arm’s length from the Scottish Government. The airport offers aviation services to a wide variety of customers through its in-house Fixed Base Operation (FBO), including military customers with appropriate UK Government clearance to land in the United Kingdom. As with any commercial FBO, contracts and agreements between Glasgow Prestwick Airport FBO and the customers who use this service are commercially sensitive.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-04621 on 29 November 2016 and S5W-05717 on 10 January 2017.

My previous response contained the yearly figures for inbound military flights since the Scottish Government took ownership of the airport in November 2013 until 2015.

My response to S5W-05717 provided the number inbound military flights to Glasgow Prestwick Airport between January 2016 and November 2016. I can now confirm that in 2016 there was a total of 1,748 military flights into the airport.

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at: http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

Yes. This is why our investment in the airport is on a commercial basis with the loan funding attracting a market rate of interest in line with state aid rules. We expect all loan funding will be repaid, plus interest.

The airport is run at arm’s length from Government and on a commercial basis and, as such, the Scottish Government will not comment on the airport’s commercial activities.

We have not set a time a limit for the airport to return to profitability. We want Glasgow Prestwick Airport to grow into the successful and vibrant business we know it can be, but we have always acknowledged that there is no quick fix.

The loan funding is awarded on an annual basis on the presentation and approval of a business plan. No limit has been set on the level of loan funding that may be provided.

Economic inactivity covers those not in work and not actively seeking work. Data from the ONS’ Labour Force Survey for the most recent quarter (November to January 2017) shows that the economic inactivity rate has remained unchanged over the quarter at 22.6 per cent. However, over the year to November to January 2017, the level of inactivity has risen by 65,000 to 770,000, with the rate rising by 1.9 percentage points. This annual change has been driven by increases in both male and female inactivity (up 38,000 and 27,000 respectively). In terms of age, the increases over the year were largely due to increases in inactivity amongst those aged 16 to 34 (up 55,000).

The most recent data available on reason for inactivity from the ONS’ Labour Force Survey indicates that the largest increases were seen amongst students and those considered to be in long-term sick or disabled (both up 30,000 over the year to October to December 2016).

Marine

SCS

SG Main

Notes:

• SGMarine - data has been excluded from the grade breakdown in the above table due to the small proportion of female staff which makes meaningful statistical analysis impossible.

• SCS - data at Director General and Permanent Secretary is redacted due to potential disclosure of personal information.