Fair Work Oversight Group minutes: June 2025

Attendees and apologies

• Tom Arthur MSP, Minister for Employment and Investment, Chair
• Councillor Katie Hagmann, COSLA
• Rebekah Cameron-Berry, Support for Councillor Hagmann
• Anna Ritchie Allan, Close the Gap
• Carol Young, Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights (subbing for Kimberley Wong)
• Charandeep Singh, Scottish Chambers of Commerce
• Clare Reid, Prosper
• Denise Christie, Scottish Trade Unions Congress (subbing for Dave Moxham)
• David Lonsdale, Scottish Retail Consortium
• David Taylor, ACAS
• Emma Congreve, Fraser of Allander Institute, Strathclyde University
• Heather Fisken, Inclusion Scotland
• Dr Ima Jackson, Glasgow Caledonian University
• Marek Zemanik, CIPD
• Michelle Kinnaird, Scottish Enterprise
• Professor Patricia Findlay, Fair Work Convention
• Stephanie Griffin, Equality and Human Rights Commission
• Stephen Garland, Scottish Government

 

Apologies

• Andrew Carter, Public Sector Employer (NHS)

 

Items and actions

Welcome

The Minister opened the meeting and welcomed the continued support and input from members of the group. He mentioned the centrality of the Economy in the newly published Programme for Government and the continued commitment to Fair Work as a key aspect of economic development and growth. He pointed to new funding provided within the Programme for Government to support pilot projects that will develop actions employers can take to implement inclusive recruitment practices.

The minister drew attention to several key achievements in Fair Work including the recent surpassing of 100 real Living Hours accredited employers. 

The minister spoke about the upcoming Employment Rights Bill and its progress. He reiterated that whilst the Scottish Government is supportive of the Bill noting that it puts some of the progress already made in Scotland on to a statutory basis, he remains strongly of the opinion that the best way to protect workers’ rights in Scotland in the long term is through full devolution of employment powers. He spoke about the need to assess the implications of the bill on Scotland’s future focus in relation to Fair Work and where we believe there are likely to remain issues on which Scotland would wish to demonstrate continued leadership and indeed go further.  He noted that he envisaged a key role for the Fair Work Oversight Group members in informing this process and would engage further with them in due course

Action log

An update was provided on the progress towards action from previous meetings. 

Work to engage with Industry Leadership Groups (ILGs), is still in progress with officials seeking to engage with specific groups during a pause in the ILG Chairs Roundtable. 

An action was taken to provide information of any planned evaluation of Fair Work First conditions in procurement in regard to use of outsourced workers. 

Members acknowledged that had been updated previously provided on how the real Living Wage was calculated.  An action was taken following Members suggestion that further communication could be undertaken with accredited employers in advance so that they understand how costs might change in future. 

Members asked whether an approach could be made to the Fraser of Allander Institute to repeat their recent Scottish Business Monitor question on business responses to labour cost increases.

Attention was drawn to the new Tourism and Hospitality Toolkit produced by the Fraser of Allander Institute.

Fair Work and women in the labour market

This agenda item was a continuation of the discussion began in the meeting in December 2024. Officials provided a brief summary of the presentation from the previous meeting then opened the floor to discussion. 

The Scottish Government is including through this discussion in the process of identifying key areas where there is a greater disparity in the pay gap and seeking to identify targeted interventions for those areas. 

Members asked around the evidence base on how the trends in Scotland’s Gender Pay Gap were influenced by Scottish Government policies. 

Officials highlighted that the core measure of the Gender Pay Gap included workers in different sectors, and of different ages, with pay gaps varying between and across these.  Each year was a snapshot and pay gaps would reflect different groups’ labour market experiences over time.  Impacts of policies such as childcare provision would accrue over time.

It was raised that there was a need for more targeted outcomes relating to women in the workplace rather than relying on broad outcomes that would support people in general and women by extension. In particular targeted outcomes are required around disabled women and women from racialised minorities.  

Occupational segregation was raised as a key area to explore further with some sectors having high levels of attrition among women and more pronounced pay gaps. It was suggested that occupational segregation can only be combatted by targeting interventions properly and from as early as Early Years.   

An action was taken to provide a time series analysis of the pay gap within specific sectors.  

Women’s experiences of health and safety and sexual harassment in the workplace were raised with a focus on what the Scottish Government could be doing as part of their preventative duty. There was a sense that the policy landscape on women’s health is quite disjointed with key publications needing to align more closely together. For example, the Women’s Health Plan needing to tie in with occupation health. 

The Undervaluation of Women’s Work report was raised with officials assuring members that the recommendations of the report were being built into wider activity across Fair Work.  Officials undertook to highlight where specifically this had been included within the reporting on wider Fair Work activity. 

Challenges faced by women business owners and founders were recognised with additional barriers around access to finance and the need for peer-to-peer support. There was a call for more focused and joined up support for female owners and entrepreneurs especially those at the start-up stage in their business.  The Scottish Government group examining the gender export gap was referenced. 

In response to noting progress on payment of the real living wage in the social care sector caution was urged around talking about progressing pay in the social care sector against the backdrop of rising costs of living.  The social care pay negotiating body being developed as part of the upcoming UK Employment Rights Bill was mentioned as been a positive step forward; however, members highlighted the immediacy of pay challenges. 

There was a discussion around the need to prioritise work aimed at reducing economic inactivity, members advised that caring responsibilities predominantly fall on women, that a disproportionate number of carers are also disabled and that caring responsibilities can contribute to long term health implications and disability, further feeding into economic inactivity. 

Priority action is being undertaken by the Scottish Government to address economic inactivity with pilot projects looking at how employers can implement flexible working and support disabled workers. 

An action was taken to follow up with Inclusion Scotland on discussions held at the most recent Scotland Access to Work Forum meeting around if and how take up of Access to Work in Scotland reflects needs of disabled people in Scotland.  

Members suggested that further research into the experiences of disabled women was needed, especially around the use of reasonable adjustments, with anecdotal evidence suggesting that women were being refused reasonable adjustments or having them delayed. Resources on sexual harassment produced by the Equality and Human Rights Commission are available which may support some of these issues. 

An action was taken to follow up with members around whether the FWiSC (Fair Work in Social Care) terms and conditions group for maternity, paternity and sick pay funding would be restored.  

There was a discussion on sectoral bargaining.  Members were keen to understand where the hotspots are in relation to low levers of sectoral bargaining where workers were left to negotiate pay 1-1.  it was noted that women may be left in such circumstances with trade-offs to consider such as flexible working etc due to caring responsibilities, especially around childcare. It was raised that women can be less successful in undertaking individual pay negotiations and that collective bargaining was the preferred way forward. 

The importance of early years care provision was noted as an enabler for women to enter, remain in and progress in work.  

An action was taken to provide information on how Scottish Government investment in the Early Years Workforces was impacting levels of supply of places

Officials undertook to reflect on the issues raised in focussing upcoming work in taking action to address the Gender Pay Gap and to engage on this with members and other stakeholders.

Update on Action 3.1 and the Fair Work Resource Subgroup

Officials thanked the subgroup for their support over the past six months. The Fair Work digital support and advice hub has now officially launched. This provides a central place with basic information on Fair Work and extensive signposting to a range of different partners. The hub is designed to be a dynamic platform that will be expanded over time. 

The hub follows the mygov.scot format and style with an emphasis on clarity and concision and the highest standards of accessibility. 

Officials highlighted the Fair Work Festival taking place the week beginning 9 June with over 18 events taking place from a host of different partner organisations. Members were encouraged to take part in the week and share the events listings with their networks. 

An action was taken for officials to follow up with Inclusion Scotland around potential gaps in the new Fair Work digital hub relating to supporting disabled people and Access to Work.

Discussion on Action 1.4 – Senior leadership networks

Officials presented on their thinking around how to progress Action 1.4 of the Fair Work Action Plan, the development of senior leadership networks to build capability and understanding of racism and racial inequality in the workplace. They invited members to feedback on the suggested approach.

The Scottish Government have piloted a few approaches and it is clear that this action has a lot of potential with senior leaders in a unique position in their organisations to influence culture change which is the most effective way to achieve an impact and to maximise the use of wider Fair Work related actions Through their research it has become clear that the current level of capability may not be high enough for self-sustaining networks; therefore, an element of capability building is required ahead of developing networks. Training provided in this space needs to be non-judgemental; delivered in plain English; delivered by credible providers; and action focussed. 

A number of group members had been consulted earlier in the ongoing development of the project.  Feedback included that added that anti-racist resources need to work for resistant learners and demonstrate business benefit. The proposal aligned with work the principles that some group members are applying in other large scale anti-racist capacity building. 

It was clarified that the scope of the work  would cover employers across the public sector, around 200 organisations in total. There is also an interest in expanding into the private sector if the public sector pilot is effective. 

There were several practical suggestions for the capability building project. These include:

• Learning from the gender space and providing a coaching approach
• Developing a Champions approach
• Leveraging mechanisms within specific organisations such as corporate/personal objectives
• Learning to be taken from the senior leaders group within the Scottish Government on Equalities and Human Rights as this originally had an education/capacity building focus. 
• Further consultation with trade unions in order to unlock their expertise around anti-racist strategies
• Encouraging the disclosure of data relating to racialised minorities within an organisation
• Making a link with SOLACE at a local government level
• Ensuring coherence across a range of different similar initiatives currently in process

The impact of vertical segregation was acknowledged with many large public organisations having largely homogenous senior leadership teams. Additional work may need to be carried out relating to under representation of racialised minorities at higher levels.  Officials pointed to other actions within the Anti-racist Employment Strategy and the Fair Work Action Plan designed to target vertical segregation. However, this project is key to enabling the next generation of senior leaders to come through. 

There was a discussion around the focus of this work and whether it was in the right place. Some concern was raised that the priority lay in supporting senior leaders to talk about anti-racism where the real work of anti-racism is around the public release of relevant data and acting upon that data. Publicly owning such data and demonstrating how they are responding to it is the work of anti-racist leadership. 

Progress of the Fair Work Action Plan and Fair Work Evidence Plan

Officials drew attention to the recent publication of the Quality Assessment of the Labour Force Survey and Annual Population Survey. This had assessed how the robustness of, and confidence in, data from these sources, which the Scottish Government publish, has changed over time as a result of falling sample sizes over time. Scottish Government statisticians are engaging with the Office of National Statistics (ONS) on this subject and are investigating the potential for alternative data sources to supplement and complement existing ONS sources. 

The evaluation of Fair Work First is now in the procurement process. Officials offered to provide a substantive update at the next meeting. Two evidence reviews were provided to members in papers as part of the Fair Work Evidence Plan and will be published in due course. 

In relation to the Unpaid Care Evidence Review, members remarked on potential for exploring disabled women’s experience or more intersectional data. Officials responded that part of the purpose of the evidence review was to identify where the depth of the recent evidence base and key gaps, which was the case in relation to unpaid. The reviews were intended to support future policy work in these areas.

Members mentioned the 2023 Alma Report for the Fair Work Convention, particularly the comparisons between Scotland and other countries relating to collective bargaining. 

Any other business

The minister confirmed that there is engagement taking place with the Uk Government around the ‘Keep Britain Working’ review and that the Scottish Government do not support the UK Government’s approach to social security. The deliverability of employability services in Scotland is an area that the Scottish Government wishes to have more engagement around and there is an opportunity there within devolved competencies. 

The minister set the next meeting for December 2025 and suggested that the focus could be on what is next for Fair Work in Scotland in the context of the emerging Employment Rights Bill. 

Actions

• Update the group on any planned evaluation for Fair Work First conditions in procurement in regard to use of outsourced workers
• Provide a time series analysis of the gender pay gap within specific sectors
• Explore how further communication could be undertaken with accredited real living wage employers so that they understand how costs might change in future. 
• Follow up with Inclusion Scotland on discussions held at the most recent Scotland Access to Work Forum meeting around if and how take up of Access to Work in Scotland reflects the needs of disabled people in Scotland
• Provide an update on the FWiSC terms and conditions group for maternity, paternity and sick pay funding
• Provide information on how Scottish Government investment in the Early Years Workforces is impacting levels of supply of places
• Follow up with Inclusion Scotland around potential gaps in the new Fair Work digital hub relating to supporting disabled people and Access to Work