Equality in Employment

This document outlines East Dunbartonshire Councils commitment to promoting, equality, diversity and inclusion in its employment practices, through its policies, processes and in its workforce strategy. 

The Council reports on the diversity of its workforce, its gender pay gap and how it is working on equality outcomes. There has been improvement in employee monitoring within certain categories but we recognises more is needed to emphasise the importance of collating employee data. This will require some education around the purpose and use of the information, to strengthen the employee base and reduce the amount of no responses provided.

East Dunbartonshire Council’s Equality Outcomes for 2025-29 help us to meet our legal duties under the Public Sector Equality Duty and the Fairer Scotland Duty but promoting equality is about more than compliance. Tackling discrimination, improving access to opportunities, and building strong relationships across our workforce and communities are central to how we work and deliver services. The Equality Outcomes show how we continue to make equality and diversity part of everyday life within the Council. It also outlines the actions we plan to take to make our services fairer for everyone. 

Our aim is to remove barriers, promote equal access, and support positive inclusive relationships in all areas of service delivery. This means putting equality, diversity, and human rights at the heart of everything we do. Mainstreaming equality means including these values in all parts of the Council’s work and doing so in partnership with local communities and organisations. 

As an employer, we are committed to building a diverse and inclusive workforce. We aim to create a supportive and healthy workplace where every colleague feels valued, can be themselves, and is supported to do their best.

Improved reporting would ensure stronger links between equality monitoring and East Dunbartonshire Council’s Workforce Strategy, to enable the Council to prepare for future workforce challenges and inform its work on policy development. 

Managers and employees who have access to employee self-service are encouraged to update their details online and offline copies of the Equality Monitoring form are sent out with all contracts. Currently approximately 50% of the workforce are non-networked.

The Council’s Workforce Strategy data is reviewed throughout the year and provides a data set on the structure of the Council and its workforce, to ensure the Council can identify and respond to current and future workforce challenges, such as business critical factors and skills shortages.

The introduction of a new HR & Payroll system will allow for another phase of employee self-service. This will be an opportunity to drive a campaign to encourage greater reporting. All Council employees will be asked to review and update their sensitive information or to input information where it is not already held.

We place equality and inclusion at the core of how our Council operates, ensuring our policies, processes and service delivery are based on inclusive principles. We provide reasonable adjustments and assistive aids to support our employees. We work in partnership with the Trade Unions, meeting regularly. Where the focus has been on strategic matters facing the Council, such as service reviews and redesign, to continue to meet the needs of East Dunbartonshire residents within available resources. You can find details of our structure on the Chief Officers and Services webpage.

The overall headcount for all employees within East Dunbartonshire Council and the Leisure & Culture Trust at 31st March 2026 was 5,765. 

There were 76% female employees and 24% male employees.

Key Statistics - Workforce Profile 2025/2026 

• The percentage of our workforce aged 24 and under is increasing and this group now represent 4.42% of our workforce
• The age profile peaks between ages 35 to 44
• The percentage of our workforce declaring a disability remains below 2%
• The gender split has remained static with females making up 76% of our workforce
• 31% of employees are married or in a civil partnership
• Less than 3% of our workforce are from a Black and Minority Ethnic background
• 47% of our employees have not disclosed their religion. 21% have no religion. 29% said they belong to a Christian denomination. Fewer than 1.5% told us they were Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish Hindu or Sikh
• 49% of our workforce have not disclosed their sexual orientation. 49% told us they are heterosexual. Less than 1.5% said they were lesbian, gay or bisexual
• 57% of our employees did not answer the question on gender identity. Fewer than 1% of employees told us they identify with a gender other than the one assigned to them at birth.
  Table 1 in the Appendix provides a breakdown by protected characteristic for 2024/25 and 2025/26.

Part-time Employees 

As of 31st March 2026, 2,900 employees were working part-time. This is up from 2,799 in the previous year 2024/25.

The percentage of our workforce who currently work part-time is 50.3% in 2025/26 and was 49.37% as of 2024/25. 

Key Facts 2025/26

• 52% of employees who have disclosed a disability work in full-time roles and 48% of part-time employees
• Females are five times more likely to work in part-time roles than males.

Table 2 in the Appendix shows part-time and full-time employees by gender and disability.

Flexible Working

Part-time and flexible work can help support employees to achieve a good work life balance. We offer flexible working opportunities for employees whether they work full-time or part-time, such as compressed working and reduced contracted weeks. Our Flexible Working Policy and Flexible Working Toolkit are available on our intranet to communicate the options available to employees and to encourage uptake of informal and formal flexible working.

Key Facts 2025/26

• There were 256 flexible working requests in 2025/26, a 25% increase from 2024/25
• There were 24 flexible retirement requests in 2025/26, a decrease of 10 from 2024/25.

Recruitment

Recruitment for East Dunbartonshire Council is advertised on myjobscotland and managed using TalentLink. We also promote key posts on our social media channels, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and X (Twitter).

Table 3 in the Appendix provides a breakdown of applications received by the Council, for 2025/26 and 2024/25 for all posts by protected characteristic.

Key Facts 2025/26 

• 10 639 applications were received
• 14% of applicants were aged 24 and under
• Less than 3% of applicants were aged 60 and over 
• 70% were female
• 2.46% disclosed a disability
• 34% applicants were married or in a registered civil partnership – 49% said they were never married and never registered in a civil partnership
• Less than 5% told us they were lesbian, gay or bisexual
• 39 applicants told us they identified as transgender
• 78% of applicants said they were white, 14% were from a non-white (global majority) background
• 68% applicants said they were white Scottish
• 36% said they belonged to a Christian denomination, 44% said they had no religion or belief

New Starters 

In 2025/26 we had 797 new starts to the Council. This is a 14% increase in new starts compared to the previous year 2024/25.

Table 4 in the Appendix provides a breakdown of the new starts by protected characteristics. 

Leavers 

In 2025/26 1,315 employees left the council, this figure was 795 in 2024/25. The top three reasons for leaving were: retirement, career opportunity and health reasons.

Table 5 in the Appendix provides the breakdown of leavers by protected characteristics. 

Key Facts – 2025/26

• 7% of leavers were aged 24 or under, 28% of leavers were aged 60 or over 
• 11% of leavers were retiring 
• 6% of leavers left because their fixed term contract had ended 

Retention

There were 209 occasions of maternity leave in 2025/26.

Key Facts – 2025/26

• 76% of employees returned to work for 3 months or more until the present time
• 2% of employees left the Council immediately after maternity leave or in the first 3 months
• 22% of employees are currently on maternity leave.

Table 6 in the appendix shows employees who returned to work for 3 months or more until the present time. Employees who left the Council immediately or within three months.

Development 

Personal Development

Whilst there are a number of PDRs being undertaken, reporting continues to be at a low level. HR&OD are reviewing recording and monitoring processes to improve the recording and evidence of this activity, which contributes to the Councils Workforce Action plans. 
We strive to ensure our employees have the right skills and knowledge. We do this by investing in learning and development that is vital to delivering effective and efficient services. This includes qualifications, skills and knowledge-based learning delivered internally and through external providers, as well as internal online learning courses.

Training and Development

The following gives an overview of the number of in person training courses completed by employees in 2025/26, this covers internally and externally delivered courses.

Key Facts 2025/26

• 94 types of in person training courses were completed by 1,798 participants
• 69% of participants were female 

Table 7 in the Appendix shows the employees who completed in person training courses during the reporting period 2024/25 and 2025/26 by protected characteristics on data held. 

Moodle e-learning Courses

Moodle is the Councils online e-learning service. When employees first log into Moodle there are set recommended courses, however we don’t currently target and set courses for our employees via the system. The new upcoming HR & Payroll system will make this more accessible by job roles / levels, and managers will be able to set and track learning tasks.

Key Facts 2025/26

• 133 Moodle e-learning courses were completed by 828 participants
• 61% of participants were female.

The above stats are for fully completed courses only. Employees may have reached the end of a course but the system will show in progress and not complete if the evaluation form at the end has not been completed, and some of the online courses do not have a recognised completion. For example, we have content on financial awareness that can be watched multiple times. And there are additional courses that we do not mark as complete such as: user guides, a section on our Customer Relationship Management(CRM) system, a Financial Wellbeing section and a range of topic specific videos.

Table 8 in the Appendix shows employees who completed Moodle e-learning courses during the reporting period 2024/25 & 2025/26 by protected characteristics. 

The details below represent the high level cases escalated for HR support. The information does not include lower-level cases, which are addressed locally and could be with HR advice but without a HR representative present.
 
Key Facts 2025/26

• There were 59 discipline cases and 36 grievance cases recorded. This is an 18% increase in discipline cases and a 50% increase in grievance cases recorded from 2024/25
• 14 of the grievance cases 38%, related to allegations of bullying, harassment or discrimination. 

Table 9 in the Appendix shows the gender split of those raising a grievance.

Occupational segregation is the distribution of employees across and within occupations, based on demographic characteristics such as gender, disability and race.

East Dunbartonshire Council has been participating in the Equally Safe At Work(ESAW) programme, managed by *Close The Gap, and one of the key actions is to look at occupational segregation. As the Council currently has a low response rate to equality monitoring questions this significantly limits our ability to draw meaningful insights from the data. With a small proportion of responses it is difficult to identify reliable patterns, assess representation, or understand the experiences of different groups within our workforce but this is an area we are working on to advance. 

* Close the Gap is Scotland’s expert policy advocacy organisation working on women’s labour market participation.

Gender Distribution by Salary Grading 

Table 10 in the Appendix provides a breakdown of salary grade by female and male split.

Key Facts 

• Our lowest graded posts Grade 3 - Grade 5, continue to be female dominated
• Areas traditionally occupied by women such as clerical, educational support, catering and cleaning continue to be female dominated
• All grades 10 and below have a more than 50% female split
• Teaching posts are predominantly female, particularly in a Primary setting.

Disability Distribution by Grade

Table 11 in the Appendix shows the representation of disabled employees is concentrated in the lower/middle level grades. However, due to the low response rate (48% unknown) this is not an accurate representation of the organisation. 

Ethnic Distribution by Salary Grade 

Table 12 in the Appendix shows the distribution of ethnic origins across salary grades split by male and female. The highest % of distribution is across white ethnic origins accounting for over 50% of the organisation. The ethnic minorities are distributed across a variety of grades but the high volume of missing data on ethnic origin makes it difficult to show a clear pattern or distribution of ethnic origin across the organisation by grade.

Senior Leadership Representation 

Table 13 in the Appendix shows the distribution of minorities across the workforce in comparison to the distribution of minorities in senior grades within the organisation. The table shows the distribution of women within senior grades is slightly lower than the overall workforce but remains high across senior grades. 

The representation of employees who have identified themselves as disabled are low across the workforce and this is equally reflected across the senior grades. There is a low level of ethnic minorities across the organisation and this is lower again within senior grades. 

However, it is to be noted that the organisations equality data for these factors are very low (48.9% unknown disability & 45.97% unknown ethnic origin) and therefore it is difficult to have an accurate conclusion for the distribution of disabled or ethnic minorities across the organisation. 

Distribution by Job Title at Grade 6 and below 

Table 14 in the Appendix is a snapshot of various Grade 6 and below posts showing the male/female split. It shows there is a significantly higher female % in most of these posts (excluding the craft posts). 

Catering staff (team leaders and assistants) are predominantly female with more than 88% female in team leader posts and 96% in assistant posts. There is a similar pattern for cleaning staff. 

Some posts don’t have any representation from both genders such as streetscene and roads operatives that are only represented by males. 

Gender Split - sample of higher grades

Table 15 in the Appendix shows a few examples of the female/male split in higher graded posts. Head teachers in primary settings have a significantly higher % of females in these posts (91%). Grade 12 managers, this is mainly service managers, is quite evenly split. 

• East Dunbartonshire Council are working towards bronze accreditation in the Equally Safe At Work (ESAW) programme, recognised for its promotion in gender equality
• The Council supports the White Ribbon Campaign and has a VAWG and Safe and Together Steering Group, which work towards the prevention of violence against women.

East Dunbartonshire Council calculates its gender pay gap on an annual basis in accordance with our duties arising from the Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties) (Scotland) Regulations 2012. In addition, the Council conducts regular equal pay reviews to ensure that all staff are paid fairly and equitably.

The Act requires public bodies with a workforce of more than 250 employees to publish gender pay gap which is a calculation undertaken to measure the difference between men and women’s average hourly earnings (excluding overtime) across an organisation or the labour market. This is expressed as a percentage of men’s earnings,

East Dunbartonshire Council has 3 distinct grading structures:

• Local Government – Grades 3 to 17
• Teachers
• Chief Officials.

Close The Gap say that ‘on average, women in Scotland earn 15% less per hour than men.’ They advocate the ‘pay gap is the key indicator of the inequalities and differences that still exist in men’s and women’s working lives.’ And they have identified three main factors in this, ‘occupational segregation, inflexible working practices, and pay discrimination.’ Close the Gap | Public sector

The gender pay gap is defined as the difference in the average hourly wage of all men and women across an organisation.

The gender pay gap is always expressed as a percentage and is calculated by detailing the difference between the average hourly pay rate of male employees and the average hourly pay rate of female employees.

Mean Gender Pay Gap

The mean average hourly rate of pay has been calculated by adding all individual employees’ hourly rate of pay and dividing by the total number of employees included in the data set.

Table 16 in the Appendix shows the mean average gender pay gap for East Dunbartonshire Council, which is 3.46%. 

Median Gender Pay Gap

The median hourly rate is calculated by ranking the all hourly rates earned within East Dunbartonshire Council from the lowest paid to the highest paid and taking the hourly rate for the person in middle. The median gender pay gap is the difference between women’s median and the men’s median and expressing this as a percentage.

Table 17 in the Appendix show the median gender pay gap for East Dunbartonshire Council is lower than the mean at 0%. 

Our full Gender Pay Gap report can be found on our website.

Whilst there is a slight decrease in the % of women in the top 5% from 31st March 2025, each quarter remains consistent. As of 31st March 2026, 61% of those in the top 5% of earners were female.

East Dunbartonshire Council believes in equality of opportunity in employment.

The Council is committed to the fundamental principle that all policies and procedures adopted to determine pay and conditions of employment for all of our employees do not discriminate unlawfully and are free from bias and meet our obligations in relation to equal pay under the Equality Act 2010.

In the furtherance to ensuring equality, the Council, in compliance with its obligations in terms of the Scottish Joint Council National Agreement for Local Government workers, implemented the nationally agreed Job Evaluation scheme to determine the value of our posts.

Similarly, Teaching posts comply with the terms and conditions of service outlined by the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers (SNCT). The teaching salary scales and spines are set out in the SNCT Salary Tables. With promoted postholders salary placing determined by the SNCT Job Sizing.

These processes ensure that equal work is paid equally irrespective of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation. The Council will continue to work in partnership with Trades Unions to ensure that pay and terms and conditions of employment remain fair, sustainable, and equitable.

To this end we will continue to:  

• Publish employment information
• Publish pay gap information
• Gather information on the composition of our workforce with respect to protected characteristics
• Provide training and guidance on job evaluation and job sizing for those involved in determining the outcome of a roles which has a direct bearing on pay
• Inform employees of how these practices work and how their own pay is determined
• Respond to grievances relating to pay timeously, openly and fairly in accordance with the Councils agreed procedure
• Inform and consult with Trade Unions as appropriate.
  The full equal pay statement can be found on our website.
  We believe the actions set out below will help to ensure we avoid unfair discrimination and reward the skills, experience and potential of all employees in a fair and transparent way. The Council’s responsible officer ensuring these actions/ongoing activities are achieved is the Human Resources & Organisational Development Manager.

East Dunbartonshire Council actively works with its community planning partners through the Local Outcomes Improvement Plan. Our shared vision is that we are working together to achieve the best with the people of East Dunbartonshire. 

Our shared goals on equality for 2027 include a strong focus on employment and skills. Further details on this and services and provisions the Council is committed to improving such as, Gaelic language learning and British Sign Language (BSL) can be found on our website.

We recognise there are some challenges in terms of reporting on our workforce profile data, our Human Resources and Organisational Development practices and our pay practices. We are working on gathering this sensitive information and anticipate the introduction and promotion of our new HR & Payroll system will support this process. We are confident that with this new technology and having clear communication with our employees on how we will use the information they give us, will improve our reporting capability.