The Scottish Government

Fiona Myers, University of Edinburgh

• In political decision-making, at parliamentary level, women are under-represented in Scottish seats.
• At local government level, there is greater participation of women as candidates and elected members. However, women are under-represented among council leadership posts and at Chief Officer level.
• Women's involvement in national and local government is affected by supply and demand factors: structural, organisational, cultural and individual.
• Areas where there appears to be less research or even routine monitoring in the public domain, documenting or accounting for the position of women, include:

• gender composition of the committees for handling Scottish business in parliament;
• membership of public bodies;
• party political membership;
• administration of the Scottish Office at senior grades;
• second and third level local government appointments;
• gender composition of and contribution of women to non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

• In economic decision-making, women are under-represented at senior management level. The higher the management level, the lower the proportion of women. As in the field of politics, structural, organisational, cultural and individual factors contribute to barriers to women's advancement.
• Training for women into and in decision-making is unsatisfactory in:

• provision of training;
• the value of performance appraisal systems;
• the means of identifying aspirant managers among women.

• In the voluntary sector there is greater leadership participation than in the public and private sectors, though this may very according to the size of the voluntary organisation.
• Little research has been undertaken on women's participation in decision-making in churches and religious organisations. Existing data suggest that women are under-represented at decision-making levels.
• There has been little research exploring the impact of the Sex Discrimination and Equal Pay Acts in Scotland.
• Studies on the implementation of equal opportunities policies in the workplace draw attention to variations within and between organisations in terms of:

• the impetus behind the introduction of policies;
• their degree of formality and scope;
• how far monitoring and audit mechanisms include analysis by gender.

• There are gaps in knowledge of women's representation within, and experience of, decision-making contexts. Factors which may account for this knowledge gap include:
• the mechanisms for commissioning and funding research;
• the structural contexts within which research is undertaken;
• the opportunities for dissemination and publication.
• Factors which may shift the agenda include:

• the establishment of a Scottish Parliament;
• the appointment of a Scottish Office funded Women's Issues Research Consultant;
• the setting up of a Scottish Gender Equality Research Network, supported by the Equal Opportunities Commission.

• methods of selection and recruitment of candidates for political posts may be disadvantageous to women;
• 'lifestyle' factors such as the competing demands of family, work and political activity, are experienced differentially by women and men;
• cultural expectations and perceptions of appropriate roles for men and women;
• individual characteristics - studies refer to women's lack of confidence in putting themselves forward or in public speaking;
• the culture of organisations and institutions of political decision-making, for example, the timing and length of meetings and the adversarial, or 'macho', nature of political engagement;
• some authors argue that the emphasis on women's position in representative democracy may overlook their role and contribution to the participatory democracy of community groups and campaigns.

• organisational features, such as the methods of selection and promotion, are felt to work against women: where men make decisions on promotion there is a sense of like choosing like;
• the gendering of roles within professions may also preclude women's advancement. Women may find they have the 'wrong' experience for promotion;
• the assumption of a male career pattern which excludes career breaks for child-rearing and expects long hours of work may disadvantage women seeking promotion;
• the nature of senior management may discourage women from seeking promotion. As in political contexts, there are references to perceived 'macho' management approaches;
• experience of discrimination, either directly from 'traditional' attitudes and expectations adopted by members of interviewing panels, or indirectly from exclusion from informal networks;
• the perpetuation of egalitarian myths such as the 'lad o' pairts', which are meritocratic and gendered.

• the gaps between employees' and employers' perceptions and between the intention and provision of training;
• performance appraisal systems may be of limited value because they may not apply to women below management level, and they may be carried out by male line managers whose training for appraisal rarely includes gender issues;
• the absence of mechanisms by which aspirant women managers can be identified;
• the tension between women-only training and mainstream equal opportunities training. This tension derives not from the value of women-only courses to women, but from the perceived and actual responses of men.

• voluntary organisations do not have the 'standard' career ladders of other sectors;
• voluntary work could be a direct route or aid to employment;
• a greater degree of flexibility and informality.

• a limited range of sources of funding and the competitive nature of the bidding process may determine the pattern and scope of research undertaken. Where funding is made available it may still limit what can be achieved. Few studies, for example, address the experiences of both men and women;
• in terms of dissemination and publication, not only is research on women at risk of marginalisation, but publishers are often reluctant to publish work on Scotland on the grounds that it will not attract a large enough market;
• data may be unavailable for scrutiny because of commercial or political sensitivity. Statistics, whether governmental or produced by organisations with a UK-wide remit, do not always analyse data by sex for Scotland, or for regions within Scotland;
• the structural difficulties which impede women's progress up the decision-making hierarchy are reflected within academic research. There are few women in senior positions in academic institutions and their capacity to influence the research agenda is therefore limited;

• The collection of Scotland-specific data could include data analysis on gender composition of government itself as well as policy making and implementation organisations.
• The recent appointment of a Scottish Office funded Women's Issues Research Consultant.
• The establishment of a Scottish Gender Equality Research Network, sponsored by the Equal Opportunities Commission, aims to bring together researchers and potential funders with a view to identifying an agenda for research and a strategy for implementation. A preliminary trawl has indicated a high level of interest in gender equality research.