Following the release of the 2022 Scottish Census options, the myjobscotland Equality and Diversity questionnaire has been updated to reflect the census data. This will also address the use of ‘Gender’ in the previous form, replacing this with ‘Sex’ to reflect the Equality Act (2010).
The form content has been developed by Scottish Government who worked with the Office for National Statistics (ONS)and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) to gather as much evidence as possible to ensure the 2022 Census questions are clear and robust. The content has undergone extensive and detailed consultation process, full background and topic reports generated with key stakeholders can be found here.
All public authorities in Scotland must comply with the public sector equality duty set out in the Equality Act 2010.
The challenge for public bodies is to translate the legislative requirements of the Equality Act into an approach that mainstreams equality into policy and practice, which aims in turn to tackle inequalities and improve outcomes for all communities.
To maximise outcomes, it is important to consider the diversity of applicants and potential employees. To enable organisations to capture this consistently most fields are now mandatory; however, applicants do have the option of selecting the ‘prefer not to say’ option if you choose to not disclose.
This information is handled confidentially within Human Resources departments and not shared with Recruiting Panels.