Board experience scheme to help 'empower women'

Jersey's government has begun a scheme to help provide experience serving on the boards of organisations to "empower women" to apply for senior roles.

It was hoped it could help civil servants gain skills and experience, which would enable them to apply for higher paid managerial roles, officials said.

Government data shows that men working in the public sector earn nearly 20% more than women - compared to an an overall gender pay gap in the island of 6.3%.

Vice-chair of the States Employment Board Malcolm Ferey said: "We want to empower women to go for those [senior] jobs, to get those jobs, and to address that."

The Corporate Services Scrutiny Panel questioned senior politicians on Tuesday, including Ferey, on what they were doing to close the gender pay gap.

Panel chair Helen Miles said the government could take inspiration from elsewhere.

She said: "We have to be taking steps to close the gap.

"There is a number of successful case studies from around the world, Luxembourg in particular."

"Their pay gap is down to 0.7% as a result of very proactive policies, such as free child care, tax breaks for women, a focus on women in leadership and those sorts of things."

Melissa Blissett, senior consultant in pay gap analytics at consultancy firm Barnett Waddingham, said pay disparity could make life more challenging for women.

She said: "If women are earning less than men, not necessarily because they are being paid less, but because of the job roles they are being offered, then women don't have a discount on rents or mortgages, on car insurance or groceries.

"It's really placing women in a very, very difficult situation."