With International Women’s Day approaching this Sunday, I want to take a moment to reflect on an important conversation that has been raised with me by colleagues across the organisation about how we support women’s progression, flexibility, and wellbeing at work.
I’m grateful to staff who have shared their lived experiences — particularly around balancing caring responsibilities with career development. These reflections echo wider challenges we know exist across the public sector and beyond, and they underline why this work matters.
We already monitor the proportion of women in senior roles as part of our Health of the Organisation reporting and through national benchmarking. Our most recent figures show that 57.9% of our highest paid 5% of staff are women, compared with a national local government average of 60.3%. While this is encouraging, it does not tell the full story.
Our most recent Equal Pay Audit highlighted a key issue that many of you will recognise part‑time and flexible working options are less prevalent at higher grades, and workloads are not always adjusted appropriately when hours reduce. This can create real barriers to progression and sustainability, particularly for colleagues with caring responsibilities.
Over the past year, our Organisational Development team has carried out quantitative research and benchmarking with other councils. This has identified practical actions we can take — especially in how we recruit and promote roles — and these are now being progressed through our recruitment review and the new Recruitment Policy. This includes:
- Reviewing our approach to job sharing
- Strengthening and clarifying “flexible first” language in job adverts
- Asking recruiting managers to explicitly state whether part‑time or job share options could be considered, particularly for hard‑to‑fill roles.
The research also highlighted common barriers seen across councils, including inconsistent recruitment messaging, cultural assumptions that senior roles must be full time, a lack of visible senior role models working flexibly, and workloads not reducing when hours do.
To better understand how these issues play out locally, we are planning more in‑depth qualitative work, including conversations with staff, as part of our 2026/27 workplan. Ideas such as reverse mentoring and creating more visible role models are part of the discussion, and I’m keen that we continue to learn directly from colleagues’ experiences as this work develops.
My commitment is that this will not be a one‑off conversation. Creating an organisation where people can progress, thrive and balance their lives — at every stage of their career — is fundamental to who we want to be.
I’m also conscious that many staff tell me they’d like to hear more about the breadth of work happening across the council. Here are just a few examples of recent activity:
- Community Benefits Wish List – our Procurement Team works with suppliers to support community projects as part of council contracts.
- Film in Argyll – Economic Development colleagues are helping attract film and TV productions to Argyll and Bute, bringing economic and cultural benefits to our communities.
- Pre‑loved School Uniforms – colleagues across services have partnered to support local families and reduce environmental impact. (Did you know how many litres of water it takes to make a single T‑shirt?)
- Gaelic Save the Date – colleagues delivering Gaelic services are inviting everyone to save the date for the 5th Argyll Gaelic Gathering, taking place on 15 May in Oban.
If there are areas of work you’d like to know more about — or something you’d like to share — please get in touch at workingtogether@argyll-bute.gov.uk.
Finally, thank you to The Link, our employee sounding board, for helping to ensure that staff voices continue to shape how we work together.
