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CHAPTER 5: CHILDCARE, CARING AND FLEXIBLE WORKING

Introduction

5.1 As we set out in our Scheme, we know that there are particular gender equality issues for both women and men in relation to childcare, caring and flexible working.

5.2 Good affordable childcare is a key factor in enabling people, particularly women who make up 91% of single parent families ¹⁴, to escape poverty through employment. However, women with children also face constraints in terms of finding work that is potentially both commensurate with their skills and aspirations as well as flexible and convenient in terms of their childcare and other caring responsibilities. A lack of options forces many women into part-time, low-paid work.

5.3 Flexible working can support those with caring responsibilities to enter and remain in employment and manage their personal and work responsibilities. However, we know that take up of flexible working opportunities is higher for women than it is for men, 55% of women workers compared to 22% of male workers used flexible working arrangements in 2005 ¹⁵. There are a number of reasons for this including that men sometimes find it difficult to access flexible working arrangements because of gendered assumptions about caring roles in families.

5.4 Another key issue to take into account is the persistent under-valuing of roles and occupations that are perceived to be "women's work". For example, we know that women make up the majority, 98% in 2005, of the pre-school education and childcare workforce. This workforce is characterised by low pay and relatively low levels of qualifications. Women also primarily make up the primary teaching workforce but this is not reflected in head teacher posts. We need to do more to encourage men to enter into these professions and more women in senior positions and address the low value attached to "women's work".

5.5 A key part of tackling these issues will be removing the barriers people face to accessing childcare and addressing the gender stereotypes that continue to define what women and men do both in terms of their caring responsibilities and their careers choices.

What we said we would do

(Also see chapter 2 on the gender pay gap and chapter 4 on occupational segregation)

5.6 Our scheme highlighted that we already provide significant support to ensure availability of childcare across Scotland and set out that we would continue to do so.

5.7 To address the issues identified for advancing gender equality in and through childcare, caring and flexible working we set out our intention to:

• consider what more we could do to support the role of fathers in their children's education;
• implement the action set out in Investing in Children's Futures, in order to develop an increasingly professional workforce to ensure women and men who work in the childcare sector are well qualified, highly skilled and valued;
• taking forward childcare, caring and flexible working issues as part of the deliberations of the cross-directorate working group on occupational segregation.
• continue to support the Working for Families Fund and other initiatives which provide much needed support for families.
• raise awareness of the benefits of the Scottish Government's family friendly policies amongst staff and look to improving the monitoring of their uptake amongst men and women.

What we've done

Fathers

5.8 We are continuing to support Children in Scotland's Children, Fathers and Fatherhood project to raise awareness of issues affecting children in their relationships with their fathers and to encourage all fathers to develop their fatherhood skills. In addition, the project will begin to identify the policy gaps that affect children's experience and involvement with their fathers and make appropriate and useful proposals to support the Government's positive approach to parental involvement and parental support. Over the coming period it will also provide Local Authorities with examples of best practice on implementation of the Gender Equality Duty in relation to fathers and children.

Investing in Children's Futures

5.9 The Scottish Social Services Council ( SSSC) have been taking forward implementation of Investing in Children's Futures on our behalf. To develop leadership in the early years and childcare sector we want a workforce that is led by degree (or equivalent) qualified professionals. On 31 October 2007, we published the first ever Benchmark Standard for Childhood Practice (at SCQF level 9) and training providers are now developing these new awards. The first managers will be able to start continuing professional development routes to the new Childhood Practice awards from September 2008. The courses will be work based and available face to face or through distance learning. They will help to improve leadership and management, providing better services to children and career opportunities for the workforce.

5.10 We have agreed that awards will be approved by the SSSC and will ask the Council to amend their registration requirements from 2011 to require lead practitioners / managers in early years to have attained this leadership level or to attain it within a specified period.

5.11 To assist career progression and development a Continuous Learning Framework for social services is being developed. The framework is now entering a piloting stage with initial groups from the early years and childcare sector. The intention is for the full framework to be available later in 2009. All of this work sets the foundation to improve the status and recognition of the workforce and create a more attractive career for a wider range of the community.

Occupational segregation

5.12 We also continue to consider the childcare, caring and flexible working issues as part of our cross-directorate occupational segregation working group. An update on the work of this group and some of our wider work to tackle occupational segregation is provided in chapter 4.

Working for Families

5.13 We understand that people experience poverty for different reasons and that if we are to support people out of poverty, which we know disproportionately affects women, we need to respond to their different needs and address the structural inequalities that continue to exist. We have been exploring some of these issues through our multiple and complex needs pilots and through our occupational segregation working group, as well as addressing them through initiatives such as our Working for Families programme, 71% of whose clients are single mothers (as at 31 December 2007).

5.14 In the context of the Spending Review, 2008 to 2011, the Scottish Government announced the creation of a new fund aimed at tackling poverty and deprivation across Scotland. The Fairer Scotland Fund replaces a number of current programmes and funding streams, including the Working for Families Fund. The new Fund will total £145 million per year for the next three years and will be part of the local government settlement. An allocation from the Fund will be made to each local authority area to enable Community Planning Partnerships ( CPPs) to work together to tackle area-based and individual poverty amongst individuals and families; and to help more people access and sustain employment opportunities.

5.15 The new Fund replaces seven existing measures, each with its own individual monitoring regime:

• Community Regeneration Fund
• Working for Families
• Changing Children's Services Fund (Social Inclusion element)
• Community Voices Fund
• Financial Inclusion Fund
• Workforce Plus
• More Choices, More Chances

5.16 The Scottish Government also recently launched a discussion paper entitled " Taking Forward the Government Economic Strategy: A Discussion Paper on Tackling Poverty, Inequality and Deprivation in Scotland." This paper will inform the development of a framework by the end of 2008 for delivering the aspects of the Government Economic Strategy related to tackling poverty, inequality and deprivation in Scotland. The paper sets out that in analysing poverty we must also recognise that the issues experienced by men and women may be gender-specific and demand distinct approaches to be taken in addressing the needs of men and women. It is aimed at a broad range of key stakeholders with an interest in the area of poverty and social inclusion in Scotland and will support a period of engagement and discussion over the first few months of 2008.

As an employer

5.17 As an employer we continue to promote flexible working opportunities to all of our staff to allow them to balance their home and working lives. We have used a variety of mechanisms to do this, including intranet guidance, staff news articles and our in-house magazine. Our 2007 Employee Survey indicated that 69% of our staff are now able to enjoy a satisfactory work-life balance (a slight increase on the previous year) and we will continue to undertake more detailed analysis of the survey results by equality strand, including gender.

5.18 At 1 October 2007, 23% of women and 2.5% of men worked part-time and numbers for both continue to increase, slowly but steadily. We will continue to enhance the data we collect through the e-HR system and undertake more effective monitoring of the information gathered. The system now provides a wider range of reporting information. Plans are in hand to ensure that all staff complete their working pattern and other diversity information through the system's self-service function. This will also allow us to equality impact assess our policy on flexible working and this is already underway.

5.19 We will also continue to share best practice, both with the Public Sector Diversity Network, a group of public sector employers set up by the Scottish Government's Diversity Team in November 2007, and with the diversity practitioners of other Government Departments.

5.20 Following our network review, we continue to provide support for our staff networks for carers and for those working alternative patterns and have involved network members in a variety of policy development exercises, including our domestic abuse and attendance management policy reviews. Our Senior Women's Network is also working closely with our Diversity Champion and other senior staff to promote cultural change across the organisation, particularly in relation to behaviours and flexible working.

5.21 The Scottish Government Childcare Voucher Scheme remains available to all staff and 331 individuals have already participated. Although all staff have not yet recorded their data on the e-HR system, initial indications would suggest that there is broadly similar uptake between male and female staff.

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