From research undertaken in 2012 on where public bodies were at on Equal Pay and closing the gender pay gap, it was concluded :
government can finally, after more than 40 years, ensure that the missing piece of the jigsaw which has left equal pay for women as a job too long incomplete, is finally retrieved from behind the sofa cushions of public sector apathy. By commissioning a consortium of the major equality groups to construct and manage a centralised equal pay gap database accessible to all – ministers and members of the public - and designed to hold equal pay gap data submitted directly and annually by all public sector bodies, real mainstreaming, accountability, transparency and powerful drivers for effective performance management on delivering equal pay for all the protected characteristics would %ensure equal pay across the equality spectrum did not require another 40 years.
In 2015, when research returned to look specifically at the NHS in Scotland and where the gender pay gap was [18.85% ] the conclusion then was :
Having had over 40 years to embrace the work required to deliver equal pay for women, and make good on a commitment made by the Cabinet Secretary for Health 6 years ago, the stark reality is that in Scotland’s NHS, making equal pay happen for women remains something much talked about but little acted upon.
The lack of easily available, clear, consistent and comparable data on equal pay gaps across the whole of the NHS makes it difficult for women and trade unions to hold Boards to account on equal pay.
Exactly how the current Cabinet Secretary for Health is supposed to know what the equal pay gap is in the NHS she is supposed to run remains, like so many of the methods used to calculate and publish it, a mystery.
Subsequent research reports in 2017 found the Gender Pay Gap was 19.99% and in 2019 the Gap was going in the wrong direction and had reached at 20.77%. A revisit in late 2021 to the scene of the crime that is equal pay in Scotland's NHS found the Gender Pay Gap had come down to 16.10%.
In a revisit in 2023, the linked issues of the Gender Pay Gap and occupational segregation were examined. In 2010, the NHS Information Services Division was reporting then that women comprised 77.78% of the NHS Scotland workforce and that men formed 22.22% of the total. As at 2023, the levels are 79.29% women and 20.71% men. The dial has barely shifted within the NHS in Scotland on occupational segregation. If anything, occupational segregation has deepened. This unchanging imbalance in the NHS workforce points to the lack of a joined-up strategic approach to reducing and eliminating occupational segregation.