The number of women in top council jobs is still too low, according to latest figures from the Municipal Year Book. Petra Barnby looks at what council leaders might do to help women climb the ladder Seventy-five per cent of all council positions are held by women, and yet females occupy just 28% of senior manager roles in local authorities. The figures, from the latest edition of the Municipal Year Book, should serve as a wake-up call to council leaders, according to the national adviser for workforce strategy at the IDeA, Joan Munro. ‘Some people think women's equality has been dealt with, but these figures show a different story,' says Ms Munro. ‘Council leaders must ask themselves, are they doing enough to make sure women can move up? Are they missing out on half of their talent? Those local authorities which do well in this area operate differently. They make sure there is a culture of equality,' she says. Only in the people-focused and care services is there is a healthy ratio of men to women managers – in customer services, for example, women make up 51% of senior staff. But when it comes to top-rung management positions, the ratio plummets, with only one in five chief executives being female. In addition, there are 248 councils in which there are no women at all in the position of chief executive or leader of the council. And when it comes to outdoor and engineering-type senior jobs, the men form the lion's share – women make up just 5% of the staff in building control services, 5% in highway services, 9% in transport and 6% of lighting engineers. Principal strategic adviser at Local Government Employers, Jon Sutcliffe, puts the problem down to certain management jobs having a ‘gender stereotype' attached to them. ‘Many of the professions dominated by men, such as building control and highways, have no tradition of attracting women, and clearly, this applies all the way up, from basic to senior jobs in these general job families, such as highways. ‘The same can be said of "female" professions, such as social care,' he says. ‘And breaking down these stereotypes may take longer than we think. ‘The segregation caused by this gender stereotyping is a big challenge for local authorities, and once we have finally dealt with the problem of equal pay for work of equal value, we must move on to addressing the underlying reasons for occupational segregation, which really start in education.' But, in the meantime, council leaders can put in place measures which promote an atmosphere of equality in the work place. Ms Munro suggests council leaders: l create women's development programmes which encourage women to move up within the council l provide workshops which stretch women in their roles l set up mentoring schemes to build confidence l focus on those professions which are ‘male bastions', and check they are encouraging women to join l challenge the sector skills councils and universities on whether they are promoting roles to women Reacting to the figures, the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives (SOLACE), points out there has been a rise in the number of women in chief executive roles in the last four years, from 12% to 20%, but this sidesteps a drop in the last year from 20.6% to 19.5%. SOLACE did admit things need to improve, and it is pushing for more women to sign up to its graduate programme which currently has 116 women out of a total of 193 positions. Its efforts are now focused on making sure women become candidates for top positions across local government, it says. With a problem as embedded as this, every little helps. What a difference Newtownabbey BC won the Women in Local Councils – Making A Difference award in June. The council's men-to-women ratio is well above average, with 44% of its political leaders being women, and 33% of its directors. At South Northamptonshire DC, the leader, deputy leader and chief executive are all women.
