Public sector workforce strategic position: equality and Fairer Scotland duty impact assessment

The Scope of the EQIA

Equalities legislation requires an assessment to be carried out of the likely equalities impacts of the proposed devolved public sector workforce strategic position. The Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties) (Scotland) Regulations 2012 impose a duty on the Scottish Ministers, where necessary and to the extent necessary to comply with the PSED, to assess the impact of applying a proposed new or revised policy or practice against the 3 needs of the PSED. The aim of the PSED is to help the public sector to promote equality, tackle discrimination and foster good relations between people.

The purpose of undertaking the Equality Impact Assessment (EQIA) is to test the proposed Workforce Strategic Position against the needs of the general Public Sector Equality Duty (the PSED) in the Equality Act 2010 (the Equality Act), and to consider how it will affect people with “relevant protected characteristics” when implemented.

The EQIA examines how the proposed Workforce Strategic Position might impact on different people and groups, what steps are taken to prevent discrimination and to identify opportunities to promote equality. For this EQIA we have considered all the relevant protected characteristics.

The analysis draws on labour market data by “relevant protected characteristic” from the data sources listed in footnotes, including Annual Population Survey (APS) data, Local Government publications, NHS workforce statistics, Scottish government statistics, and the Scottish Teachers Census. According to the Equality Act, the “relevant protected characteristics” assessed below are:

• Sex
• Age
• Race
• Disability
• Religion or belief
• Pregnancy and maternity
• Sexual orientation
• Gender reassignment

The Fairer Scotland Duty under the Equality Act places a duty on certain public bodies in Scotland (including the Scottish Ministers), when they are making decisions of a strategic nature about how to exercise their functions, to have due regard to the desirability of exercising their functions in a way that is designed to reduce the inequalities of outcome caused by socio-economic disadvantage. The Fairer Scotland Duty Impact Assessment (FSDIA) looks the socio-economic impacts of the proposed options, in particular for those on lower incomes

While the policy is not prescriptive on workforce levels for individual public bodies, it does expect that senior leaders across the public sector will ensure that the target is met.

Devolved public sector employers who are subject to the PSED and related duties to assess equalities impacts will be expected to conduct their own in-depth EQIA analysis to inform any decisions they will make in relation to any workforce reductions to ensure that, when making any workforce reductions, due regard is had to the 3 needs of the PSED.

An assessment has been carried out in relation to the 3 needs of the PSED, which are to:

(1) Eliminate discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct that is prohibited by or under the Equality Act.

The purpose of the strategic workforce position is to set an overarching workforce delivery trajectory to ensure public money is focused on delivering government objectives, underpinned by reform and prioritisation to maximise impact

(2) Advance equality of opportunity between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it.

The aim of the workforce strategic position is to allow public bodies to determine a workforce trajectory that is fiscally sustainable and fair while helping to sustain public sector jobs and protect public services within the tight financial position.

The workforce strategic position sets the overarching framework which will be applied on the same basis to all staff regardless of their age, disability, gender reassignment, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation.

(3) Foster good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it.

While the devolved public sector strategic workforce position sets an overall position it will be for public bodies to assess the impacts of their make individual choices on how to implement the strategic position in their specific circumstances considering their own staffing profile and HR policies.

All devolved public sector employers are already required to confirm they have complied with their obligations under equalities legislation in developing their pay proposals. The Workforce position as set out will look to embed workforce decisions as part of employers’ thinking on pay proposals

Public bodies will be required to provide equality focussed information to the Scottish Government. This will enable the Scottish Government Public Sector Pay and Workforce team to analyse the impact of the policy on the “relevant protected characteristics”. Gathering and analysing this information centrally and sharing the results will aid other devolved public sector employers in developing their own pay proposals.

Key Findings

As highlighted earlier, this is a high level strategic workforce position applying to the whole devolved public sector, which plans for a managed downward trajectory for the devolved public sector workforce in Scotland (0.5 per cent reduction on average per annum over the next five years) as part of a shift in workforce plans and operating models because of service re-design, automation, process improvement, re-prioritisation, mergers, shrinking corporate functions from 2025-26 and over the course of the next parliamentary term (2026 – 2031). Front-line services will remain protected

In the absence of detailed delivery plans, our analysis considers the whole of the Scottish public sector and assumes that all workforces within that will be impacted equally. Further, more detailed, impact assessments on this Strategic Workforce Position will be carried out by Public Body leaders as local decisions on how to implement this target are taken and we will continue to monitor and analyse the impact of the policy on disadvantaged groups as delivery plans firm up.

Summary of Impact

The devolved public sector strategic workforce policy will impact socio-economically disadvantaged and protected groups through two channels. Firstly, the policy - which looks to re-shape the size and shape of the workforce – will have a direct impact on those employed in the public sector. Secondly, changes in how we deliver public services might also impact the users of public services and these are more likely to be used by those with the “relevant protected characteristics” in relation to the PSED.

Analysis of labour market data indicates that there are higher proportions of female workers across the Scottish public sector, compared to their share in the working age or economically active population. Some large workforces, such as Local Government, have a disproportionately high share of older workers while UK wide evidence suggests ethnic minority workers make up a disproportionately high share of staff in the NHS. These groups could therefore be more affected by the proposals although the extent to which this is the case depends on the final delivery plans. For example, protection of frontline NHS services may mitigate the impact on ethnic minority workers, particularly female ethnic minority workers.

The policy could also have a proportionally larger effect on other protected groups, however, there is limited labour market data on the other “relevant protected characteristics” and on levels of socio-economic disadvantage, across public sector workforces. The evidence on disability representation is mixed but there is no clear over or under-representation of disabled staff in the public sector compared to the economically active working age disabled population.

At this point, it is difficult to assess how the planned workforce reductions may affect overall service delivery. Should these go hand in hand with generating efficiencies or increased productivity, e.g. through streamlining corporate services or greater use of AI, the overall impact on the level of frontline services provided could be limited. Should this not be the case, however, there might be further implications for socio-economically disadvantaged and protected groups. Evidence suggests that the impact of any potential reduction in public services would be likely to fall more heavily on disadvantaged people, and those with lower incomes, because of their greater reliance on the broad range of public services.

A key action arising from this devolved public sector strategic workforce position, is the development of a Workforce Management Policy and control framework. This will set the principles, parameters and metrics, governance and controls required to operationalise our approach to workforce management in public bodies, integrated with the Public Sector Pay Policy to underline the connection between these two drivers of public spending. To mitigate against some of the highlighted areas of impact outlined above for persons with the “relevant protected characteristics”, the management policy will create a governance framework to ensure that public leaders carry out their own robust impact assessments to inform local decisions on implementation.

Evidence of impact on staff within public sector workforce

Methodology

The analysis draws on labour market data by “relevant protected characteristic” from the data sources listed in footnotes, including Annual Population Survey (APS) data, Local Government publications, NHS workforce statistics, Scottish government statistics, and the Scottish Teachers Census. According to the Equality Act, the “relevant protected characteristics” assessed below are:

• Sex
• Age
• Race
• Disability
• Religion or belief
• Pregnancy and maternity
• Sexual orientation
• Gender reassignment

The assessment also looks at the level of socio-economic disadvantage.

Where possible, we have compared the share of those employed in the public sector with their share in either the working age population or the economically active population. The economically active population is a more useful comparator when available as some groups have lower representation among the economically active population which then corresponds to lower representation in the public sector workforce. For example, disabled people and older people might be unable to work, or younger people could be in full time education and, therefore not considered economically active. This approach can be used when assessing whether the diversity and make-up of a specific workforce is representative of the economically active population.

Data availability and quality varies across the characteristics. The four characteristics below (sex, age, race and disability) are the most heavily monitored.

Sex

Female workers have significantly higher representation in almost all public sector workforces than in the general working age or economically active population. In Scotland 65.9% of the public sector workforce (both reserved and devolved) is female, compared to 51.1% of Scotland’s population aged 16 to 64 and 49.2 per cent of the economically active (16-64) population in Scotland^[1].

The proportion of female staff varies by workforce. In Scotland, the most recent data for each workforce shows that 88.9% of primary school teachers are female^[2], 74.3% of local government workers are female^[3], 78.8% of NHS Scotland staff (including 89.8% of nursing and midwifery staff) are female^[4] and 65.7% of police officers are male^[5]. Some of these workforces are potentially frontline services and could be somewhat protected from reductions.

The findings above are supported by other publications showing the UK public sector as a whole employs more female workers than male workers^[6]. There are also intersections of sex with race and disability that affect economic activity: see those sections below for details.

Age

There is no published breakdown for Scotland’s public sector workforce by age.

Older workers are more common in some large public sector workforces, such as councils, than in the general working age population, though this varies by workforce.

Comparability between data sources is hampered because of the different age groupings used by different sources (see Tables 2 and 3 below).

People aged 55-64 make up 22.6% of the working age (16-64) population of Scotland^[7]. People aged 50-64 make up 29.7% of the 16+ economically active population (table 3) and have an economic activity rate of 71.9%^[8]. We do not have data on the economic activity rate of the 55-64 group, but this age group is often used in workforce statistics, making direct comparison with the economically active population difficult.

The general economic activity rate for 16-64 population is 77.0%^[9]. People in the youngest working age groups (16-19 and 20-24) make up a lower share of the 16+ economically active population (3.6% and 8.7%) in part because many are in full time education. People in older age groups (50-64 and 65+) make up 29.7% and 3.8% of the economically active population respectively, as older people are more likely to retire early or have age-related illnesses that make working more difficult.

Source: Diversity and inclusion of the Scottish Government workforce – 2024 – Age^[10]. 55-64 data from NRS 2023 mid-year estimates^[11].

Source: annual population survey database query: Scotland, 12 months to December 2024, denominator: 16+ economically active population, Economic activity rate by age^[12]

Scottish councils employ a higher proportion of older staff than is represented in the general working age population with 28.9% aged 55 to 64 (compared to 22.6% in the working age population), and 61.7% over 45^[13]. In contrast, 12.3% of teachers are 55 or over^[14]. 24.9% of NHS Scotland staff are 55 and over, with a median age of 44.^[15] While direct population comparison is difficult due to the staff aged 65+ who could be included in this measure, this is higher than the proportion of the 55-64 age group in the working age population. Staff aged 60 years old or older make up 7.5% of the Scottish Government workforce, compared to people 60-64 making up 10.9% of Scotland’s population aged 16 to 64.^[16]

There may also be lower representation of younger workers in some public sector workforces than in the population, though this may be expected due to general lower economic activity rates for people under 24 years old. 44.9% of people aged 16 to 19 are economically active, compared to 84.6% of people aged 25 to 34^[17]. Staff aged between 16 and 29 years old make up 13.8% of the Scottish Government workforce, compared to people 16-29 making up 26.7% of Scotland’s population aged 16 to 64^[18].

Race

There is no published breakdown for Scotland’s public sector workforce by ethnicity.

Minority ethnic workers appear to have lower representation in most public sector workforces than the general working age population, except in the NHS.

People in minority ethnic groups make up 7.7% of Scotland’s population aged 16 to 64^[19]. Data on race or minority ethnic status of public sector staff has some gaps due to unknown/chose not to disclose groups, and there are different definitions of minority ethnic groups in different data collections which hamper comparison.

NHS Scotland staffing data appears to show minority ethnic representation similar to the general population but may actually have higher rates of minority ethnic representation due to the high level of declined/not known responses in the data. NHS Scotland staff were recorded as 71.4% white, 22.0% declined/not known, and 6.7% all other groups combined^[20]. This is supported by ONS analysis on ethnicity in the UK public sector workforce showing that health services have greater minority ethnic representation than the general UK workforce^[21]. The NHS Scotland workforce is also 78.8% female and is likely therefore to have notably higher representation of female ethnic minority workers than other workforces though this data cannot be broken down to examine this intersection.

Other large public sector organisations employ fewer minority ethnicity staff than proportional to the general population. 2.5% of Scottish council employees are recorded as a minority ethnicity. Ethnicity was not recorded for 25.9% of all council staff ^[22]. Teacher’s census data records 1.9% of teachers are minority ethnic workers^[23]. Ethnic minority staff make up 5.0% of the Scottish Government workforce.^[24].

The economic inactivity rate for ethnic minority males (20.9%) is similar to that for white males (19.9%) and females (24.7%), but the economic inactivity rate for ethnic minority females (39.9%) is much higher^[25]. This intersectionality points to generally lower representation of female minority ethnic workers and should be taken into account for public sector workforces as they have generally higher proportions of female staff, though the data for individual workforces cannot be broken down to show this intersection.

Disability

Disabled people appear to have lower representation in the public sector workforce than the general working age population, but no clear conclusions can be drawn on disability representation in the public sector workforce relative to the economically active population.

Disabled people are underrepresented in most workforces compared to their share in the working age population, partly due to the association of disability with age and partly due to disabilities that can impact a person’s capacity to work in some roles.

The proportion of disabled staff varies by public sector workforce and by level of recording, with much data not being disclosed, so limited conclusions can be drawn on disabled staffing in the public sector.

The percentage of the population with a long-term illness, disease or condition was 21.4% in Scotland’s Census 2022^[26]. In annual population survey data^[27], 28.9% of those aged 16-64 were reported as disabled under the Equality Act definition or work-limiting disabled. In this group the economic activity rate was 56.4% compared to 85.5% for those without a disability, meaning that a little under half of those either disabled under the Equality Act definition or work-limiting disabled were not economically active. There is some intersection of this characteristic with sex, as in the same data a lower percentage of males aged 16-64 are disabled (25.6%) compared to females aged 16-64 (32.1%).

In NHS Scotland data 1.8% of staff have a disclosed disability^[28] which is much lower than the general population rate of disability, though over 30% of staff have unknown/not disclosed disability status so the actual rate may be higher. In councils across Scotland 4.5% of council employees are recorded as living with a disability or long-term condition. However, disability status was not recorded for a large proportion (42.1%) of council employees^[29]. Disabled staff make up 19.9% of the Scottish Government workforce, compared to 20.0% of Scotland’s population aged 16 to 64^[30].

Other characteristics

Evidence is much more limited on the characteristics below as many public sector employers do not collect or publish this level of data on their staff. Where data is collected, high declined/not known numbers make it difficult to compare proportions of staff to the general population.

Religion or belief

There is no clear conclusion to be drawn from this data as much is missing, and no clear pattern of representation can be seen. In Scotland’s Census 2022, 51.1% of people had no religion; 20.4% responded ‘Church of Scotland’; ‘Roman Catholic’ (13.3%); ‘Other Christian’ (5.1%) and ‘Muslim’ (2.2%).

NHS Scotland staff were recorded as 34.1% No religion, 14% Church of Scotland, 11.2% Roman Catholic and 1.4% Muslim with nearly 30% preferring not to respond or unknown^[31]. Staff belonging to a non-Christian religion make up 3.9% of the Scottish Government workforce who declared their religion, compared to 10% of Scotland’s population aged 16 to 64. Staff belonging to a Christian religion make up 30.2% of the Scottish Government workforce who declared their religion, compared to 34.7% of Scotland’s population aged 16 to 64^[32]. In underlying data over 25% of staff were of unknown religion or chose not to respond^[33].

Pregnancy and maternity

Very little evidence is publicly available on the levels of pregnancy/maternity within workforces, but this characteristic is closely related to sex and age with female workers aged 16-50 being the primary group affected.

Sexual orientation

This data does not allow any clear conclusions to be drawn. The 2022 census found that there were 183,860 LGB+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual and other minority sexual orientations) people in Scotland, 4.0% of people aged 16 and over. However, the proportion in the 16-64 population is likely to be higher. 2.8% of Scottish council employees are recorded as LGB, though sexual orientation was not recorded for 54.7% of council employees^[34]. NHS Scotland data shows 3.3% of staff recorded as LGB+, though 30.4% reclined to respond or were unknown^[35]. LGB+ staff make up 10% of the Scottish Government workforce, compared to 5.2% of Scotland’s population aged 16 to 64^[36].

Gender reassignment

In Scotland’s Census 2022, 0.44% of people 16 and over recorded a trans status or history, with the majority being under 35 years old. At this level, it is difficult to assess representation levels outside very large workforces as small changes in the number of individuals can affect the overall percentage in the workforce. There is also little to no monitoring data available. Staff that are trans or have a trans history make up 0.6% of the Scottish Government workforce, compared to 0.5% of Scotland’s population aged 16 to 64^[37].

Socio-economic disadvantage

There is very little data on the socio-economic status of staff in the Scottish public sector as it pertains to the background of workers in the workforce. Salary or grade data can be used as a proxy for current economic status but not necessarily background. Some reports therefore use the National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification (NS-SEC) as a proxy. This groups the occupation of the respondent’s main income-earning parent when the respondent was 14 years old.

Staff from a ‘never worked’ socio-economic background make up 2.8% of the Scottish Government workforce^[38]. Staff from higher socio-economic backgrounds make up a majority of C band staff in the Scottish Government workforce and are less well represented among lower pay grades^[39].

At UK level, analysis by the Institute for Government suggests that a majority of UK civil servants are from a high socio-economic background and about a third of civil servants are from a low socio-economic background.^[40]

Further considerations

There is a wide range of issues that may arise as a result of changes to the workforce of the devolved public sector and devolved public bodies. Some examples of the issues we would expect individual public body EQIAs to consider and mitigate include:

• Intersectional equality impacts – for example there is evidence that minority ethnic women may face barriers to feeling included in conversations that impact their pay and working conditions; they generally earn less than women from white backgrounds and can experience occupational segregation.^[41]
• Impacts on young people – EQIAs could consider take-up of modern apprenticeships^[42]
• Potential impacts on the Scottish Government’s ambitions on the disability employment gap^[43]
• The risks of automation on public service delivery, assessed by Unison for example as including potential inaccuracies and bias arising from automated decision making, reduced transparency and data protection, and impacts on service quality^[44].

Evidence on Service Delivery

At this point, it is difficult to assess how the planned workforce reductions may potentially affect overall service delivery. Should these go hand in hand with generating efficiencies, such as automation or combining resources to deliver administrative tasks, the overall impact on the level of frontline services provided could be limited. Should this not be the case, however, there might be further implications for socio-economically disadvantaged and protected groups

Recent evidence published by the Resolution Foundation suggests that public services are used disproportionately by those on lower incomes^[45]. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation likewise finds that the impact of any potential reduction in public services would be likely to fall more heavily on disadvantaged people because of their greater reliance on a broad range of public services, compared with more affluent households who have the financial ability to access other forms of service provision.

Distributional analysis published as part of the 2025-26 Equality and Fairer Scotland Budget Statement^[46] (EFSBS) also shows that spending is a greater share of household income for those in low income households across all of the areas of spending considered.

The users of public services vary by the service, so reductions in the workforce of different services would be likely to affect different groups. Older people, socio-economically disadvantaged people^[47] and disabled people are more likely need higher levels of contact with NHS services. Pregnant people and new parents are likely to be closely engaged with health services and so are affected by public service provision of ante-natal, gynaecological, obstetric, paediatric and maternity care, as well as benefits targeted to new parents such as Best Start grants. Older people and disabled people are more likely to have higher levels of contact with adult social care services. Socio-economically disadvantaged people are more likely to receive Social Security and therefore to have contact with Social Security Scotland^[48] and children and young people are the main users of child social services, school and further education services. Less obviously, disabled people, women and minority ethnic groups are more likely to be users of public transport^[49]. The likelihood of experiencing crime and therefore of contact with police or justice services appears higher for young adults, for adults who are disabled, and for those living in the 15% most deprived areas of Scotland^[50].

Access to services requires the labour of both front-line staff and administrative staff, for example to make patient appointments^[51] or record child protection actions.

Further detail can be found in the EFSBS publication^[52].