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As employment law is currently reserved, the Scottish Government cannot oblige employers in the third and private sector to report their ethnicity pay gaps. However, the Scottish Government is committed to working with key stakeholders to tackle the ethnicity pay gap.

In January 2019 the Scottish Government responded to the UK Government Ethnicity Pay Reporting Consultation. In our response we noted our support for ethnicity pay reporting, and highlighted the need for the UK Government to ensure that there is clear guidance communicated to employers on how to comply with any new regulations.

In December 2017 we launched ‘A fairer Scotland for all: race equality action plan and highlight report 2017-2021’ which sets out key actions for the Scottish Government to drive positive change for minority ethnic communities. Within the action plan there is a section on employment and a number of employment actions aim to help reduce the race pay gap.

Financial gains of £2,503,653.02 have been recorded for the first six months of operation from November 2018 to April 2019.

The following table show the mean and median ethnicity gap for a) Scottish Government core and b) the Agencies for which it holds pay data, except for those bodies where only a small number of staff within these organisations that have self-declared their ethnicity to avoid identifying any individual members of staff.

For the purposes of this table, pay includes both salary and on-going allowances, such as pay supplements, but excludes overtime. Part-time staff are reckoned at their full-time equivalent.

The Scottish Government is committed to working in partnership with unions in conducting an equality audit on pay at the Scottish Government across protected characteristics.  

We are analysing the roles performed by our workforce to better understand horizontal occupational segregation in business areas across the organisation and how this connects to pay; and, we monitor career progression of our workforce to check and act on any apparent barriers to progression of people across the range of equalities characteristics.  

We have set targets to improve the flow of minority ethnic and disabled people into SCS, aiming to have 13% disabled and 6% minority ethnic new entrants to Senior Civil Service by 2025. We are currently developing a Recruitment and Retention Plan, setting a target for the employment of disabled people in the Scottish Government and outlining other actions to improve the employment of disabled people in the organisation.  

We have made increasing diversity a key success indicator in recent large-scale recruitment exercises including our Graduate Development Programme, and this, coupled with dedicated positive action initiatives such as our 3-day Future Leaders Conference aimed at graduates from minority ethnic, disabled and socially or economically disadvantaged backgrounds, has been effective in increasing the proportion of successful candidates who identified as minority ethnic or disabled. We support the UK Civil Service Summer Diversity Internship Programme, which focuses on creating opportunities for students who identify as minority ethnic, disabled or from a socially or economically disadvantaged background.  

To build an understanding of diversity at a strategic level and to support the development of talented individuals, we have implemented mutual mentoring between our Senior Civil Servants (including the Permanent Secretary) and members of the Race Equality Network.

Scottish Government staff have the ability to voluntarily self-declare any ethnicity through our online eHR system. There is an option to ‘Prefer not to say’.

Each person’s total annual remuneration is calculated by adding their salary as at a specified date (we used 31 Dec 2018) to any ongoing allowances (such as pay supplements for recruitment and retention purposes). The mean and median remuneration were then calculated. The difference in means and medians between the two groups was expressed as the pay gap. Those staff who had chosen ‘Prefer not to say’ were excluded from the pay gap calculation, as were those who had not made any declaration. This process is the same for Scottish Government agencies.

Table 1 shows the total headcount for employees in Scottish Government Core, and the public bodies referred to in S5W-23316. A breakdown of staff numbers per band is also given. For the purposes of this table, “others” refers to members of the Senior Civil Service, and Non Assimilated Grades.

The following data includes staff who have recorded their disability status, who have declared that they would prefer not to say, or who have not recorded any response on HR systems.

Table 1

The information requested could only be obtained at disproportionate costs, exceeding the £600 threshold.

For further information on our annual spend, please refer to the following publications:

The Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts for the year ended 31 March 2018, available at:

The Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts for the year ended 31 March 2019, to be published in 2019

For further information on our annual spend, please refer to the following publications:

The Scottish government Budget 2019-20, available at:

Table 1 gives the median salary for each of the public bodies referred to in S5W-23316. The following data given is reliant on voluntary self-declaration of disabled or non-disabled status.

Table 1

The Scottish Government intends to issue the invitation to tender for social security advocacy support in the autumn of 2019.

The social security advocacy “Prior Information Notice” (PIN) published in March provided an estimated issue date for the invitation to tender of 3 June. This was indicative only and was not a formal commitment to issue on this date.