Sex and Power

The motion

That the Parliament welcomes the publication of Sex and Power 2008, the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s annual report looking at women in positions of power and influence across the public and private sector; notes the theme of the report, “missing women”, and its statement that “if women hope to shatter the glass ceiling and achieve equal representation, we would need to find the women who are missing from top positions of power in Scotland”; is concerned that despite higher academic attainment, with 57% of university students being women, women constitute only 7.4% of senior police officers, 11.8% of judges of the Court of Session and 13.6% of Scottish MPs and that, while Falkirk Council has women as leader of the administration and Chief Executive and in many senior posts, this is rare elsewhere, with women constituting only 12.5% of local authority chief executives and only 18.8% of local authority leaders; is further concerned that the report shows a declining percentage of women among public appointments, senior police officers, judges of the Court of Session, Scottish MPs and MSPs and highlights that ethnic minority women experience greater barriers in the workplace and are almost completely absent from positions of power; considers that Scotland is failing to get talented women into these positions and consequently is losing out on their contribution to Scotland’s social and political life and our economy, and believes that much more should be done to find the 130 women missing from public appointments, the 85 missing women headteachers in secondary schools, the 21 missing women MSPs and many others, as identified by the report.


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.

Lab 14 SNP 5 LD 2 Green 2

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

No contribution in the Official Report cites S3M-02497 by reference.