Kiran Dhami (London, Women's Resource Centre): Women's Resource Centre, Urban Forum and Oxfam are calling on the Government to set targets to improve women's representation on Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs) following research which shows that women are dramatically under-represented at senior levels. LSPs are key decision-making bodies at local level, controlling significant resources in the context of increasing devolution of power. The recent Local Government White Paper, ‘Strong and Prosperous Communities' emphasises the importance of community involvement in local decision-making processes. It is not only an issue of fairness that this decision-making includes women; priorities can be affected too. Women representatives are more likely to focus on social services, the safety of women and children, and gender equality. But as well as this, all public bodies now have legal obligations under the Gender Equality Duty to actively promote gender equality.Our report reveals that only a quarter of chairs of LSP Boards are women. We also found that the voice of women's voluntary and community organisations is hardly heard at all. Less than 2% of voluntary and community sector representatives on LSPs are women's organisations, despite making up 7% of the voluntary and community sector. The report also found that 80% of LSPs are not monitoring women's representation, and no LSP demonstrated awareness that issues, such as economic development or transport, affect men and women differently.
In light of the fact that no LSP interviewed was developing a gender equality scheme as a priority, it is vital that government takes the lead in driving change forward. We recommend that they set up and resource a scheme for LSPs and other local bodies to learn from good practice in representing women in decision-making. The woefully low levels of women in senior management can be regarded as discriminatory and so targets need to be set for improvement. The generally low levels of knowledge about gender needs to be tackled, which will naturally be overcome if more local women's organisations were represented on LSPs.
