Scottish Executive Failing Women on Equal Pay

The motion

That the Parliament is concerned that the Scottish Executive in its local government finance settlement fails to comply with its obligations to do all that it can to achieve equal pay; recognises that these obligations are the encouragement of equal opportunities, in particular the observance of equal opportunities requirements and the imposition of duties on Scottish public authorities and cross-border authorities in relation to their Scottish functions; believes that, given that local authorities in Scotland are resisting full settlement of equal pay for women on the grounds of insufficient funding and the risk to council services and jobs and recommending acceptance of compensation arrangements that fall well below what women would be confident of achieving by pursuing their legal entitlement, the Executive could and should have made the necessary funds available to achieve equal pay, both retrospectively and prospectively, but has not; further believes, therefore, that the Executive has not met the financial, legal, political or moral challenge of achieving equal pay and has stood by whilst the unequal pay of women has subsidised public services, and considers that only urgent direct action by the Executive on this issue, including the allocation of sufficient resources, will deliver results that match the Executive pronouncements on equality and preserve public services and the jobs of local authority workers.


No recorded vote on this motion. Most motions are never debated, and many that are debated are agreed without a division. Vote records are published from 2011.

SSP 4 Green 1

Party shown is each supporter’s party when the motion was published.

No contribution in the Official Report cites S2M-03623 by reference.