Civil Service in the news

National School of Government’s Fourth International Women’s Conference

Women from across the Civil Service and the world came together last week to talk leadership at the fourth International Women’s Conference held by the National School of Government.

The conference was a call for women in the public sector to take collective and individual action for gender equality.

Them and us

Samantha Manning, Director at the National School of Government opened the conference by reminding everybody that the theme was ‘women’s leadership globally, locally, for me, for them and for us’.

It was time for women to take stock as leaders and think about how they influence their organisations so that the common issues women face in the workplace are tackled.

But Samantha also pointed out that it was also about women deciding what their aspirations were and finding the best way of pursuing them.

A long way

Megg Munn, Minister for responsibility for Equality and Diversity at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office took a look at how far government had come on gender equality. It’s 90 years ago this month that women over 30 got the right to vote in England and 80 years since they got equal voting rights with men.

But she asked how far had women moved forward since then?

We have had an acceptance of the need to change the way we work – introducing flexible working, the ethos of work–life balance and an end to a culture of working long hours.

And we have had the legislation and initiatives to support these – from the Gender Equality Duty all public authorities now need to produce to a right for all those with dependant children or family members to flexible working.

But it’s clear that there needs to be more recognition that organisations do better when there are more women in senior positions – as Megg Munn said, ‘It isn’t just a moral case, it’s a business case’.

A human right

What equality actually means to women and to public services was a question Jocelyne Bourgon, President Emeritus of the Canada School of Public Service, posed to audience.

Jocelyn believes that, ‘Gender equality is the most basic human right.the fundamental right that guarantees all others’

Equality was about creating a humane and just society for everybody so that the ‘diversity of our dreams and aspirations’ can be respected and embraced.

She believes gender equality is still a long way off and women and girls across the world are suffering because they are born female.

But women as leaders in the public service, committed to equality, are part of helping to transform society for the better - and not just for women but for all human beings.

Say what you want

‘Say what you want’ was the call to the women at the conference from organisational development expert Dr Mee–Yan Cheung–Judge.

Mee–Yan asked the audience to interview each other about their success stories and what had enabled them to succeed. Women such as Jan Murphy from the Department for Work and Pensions said that she succeeded because she believed in the value of what she was doing.

Maureen Bailey from the Ministry of Justice felt that for her it was about having the passion to change things and Diane Corner from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said that succeeding was about surrounding yourself with networks that can support you.

Other women talked about the obstacles they had faced, including a women from Afghanistan who worked with women's groups under harsh conditions

But all agreed with Mee–Yan that, ‘In a world of work we are an amazing contribution.based on our vision and passion we can turn the world around’

Collective action

Gus O’Donnell attended the conference to hear directly from women the things they felt he should be doing to move gender equality forward in the Civil Service.

He said that he wanted, ‘to achieve the best Civil Service that we can have’, and that he was interested‘ to hear the kinds of things that I need to do’ so that this happens.

And there were lots of innovative ideas from women from across Departments on how equality can be achieved.

A good idea

Judith MacGregor from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office suggested that job descriptions and specifications should not specify how a job should be delivered. Instead it should be up to the candidate to demonstrate this – whether they do this through job–share, condensed hours or from home.

Sue Holloway from the Department for International Development idea was for Boards to have more female non–executive directors on – whether they were from other government departments or the private sector.

All the ideas put forward were aimed being more innovative at how equality is approached and this was something that Gus, and all the women present, felt would create a Civil Service ready to meet future challenges.

Find out more about the conference at, including videos of the day and winners of the Women in Public Life Awards at:

• http://www.nationalschool.gov.uk/ [External website]