Women continue to be very underrepresented in council maintenance roles across the UK, with only three metropolitan district councils employing more women than men in these types of jobs.

This is according to a freedom of information (FOI) request made by builder’s merchant Travis Perkins, which also revealed that the majority of local authorities surveyed had recruited more men than women in these roles over the past three years.

In the 24 responses of the 36 metropolitan district councils asked, many councils do at least appear to be making efforts to increase female representation though.

Number of women employed in manual or maintenance roles

Liverpool City Council, Manchester City Council and Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council are the only three councils who responded to the FOI which currently have more women in manual or maintenance roles than men.

There are 119 women out of a total of 153 employees in these types of jobs at Liverpool City Council, representing a 77.78 per cent split in favour of women. Manchester City Council has 1,535 women out of 2,283 total members of staff (a 67.24 per cent split) and Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council 608 women out of 976 overall employees (a 62.3 per cent split).

On the other end of the scale, North Tyneside Council only has 14 women in manual or maintenance roles out of 587 employees in total – a 2.39 per cent split. Sunderland City Council (eight women out of 323 overall members of staff, representing a 2.48 per cent split) and City of Wolverhampton Council (ten women out of 311 employees in total) do not fare much better in this part of the FOI.

Number of new hires which were female over last three years

The numbers are a bit more appealing when councils were asked how many women they had hired into manual or maintenance roles in the past three years, as seven local authorities revealed they had recruited more women than men during this period.

Liverpool City Council again come out on top when these statistics were analysed, with 17 of the 21 new starts in the last three years being women – an 80.95 per cent split in favour of women. The other councils to have recruited more women than men recently are as follows:

• Kirklees Borough Council had 752 female new starts out of 1,100 employees in the past three years (a 68.36% split in favour of women)
• Bury Council had 106 female new starts out of 170 employees in the past three years (a 62.35% split in favour of women)
• Manchester City Council had 364 female new starts out of 584 employees since February 2022 (a 62.33% split in favour of women)
• Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council had 148 female new starts out of 262 employees in the past three years (a 56.49% split in favour of women)
• Tameside Metropolitan Council had 78 female new starts out of 141 employees in the past three years (a 55.32% split in favour of women)
• Newcastle City Council had 608 female new starts out of 1,109 employees since February 2022 (a 54.82% split in favour of women)

However, a total of 16 councils which responded to the FOI request had recruited more men than women into manual or maintenance roles over the three-year period analysed.

North Tyneside Council (five female new starts out of 162 total employees in the past three years – a 3.09 per cent split) and Sunderland City Council (again five female new starts but this time out of 130 employees overall in the last three years – a 3.85 per cent split) have shown particularly minimal progress when looking to get more women into manual and maintenance roles.

Are councils encouraging recruitment, retention & representation of women in manual or maintenance roles?

An encouraging aspect of the FOI request is that 13 of the 24 councils which responded said that they had initiatives, policies or programmes in place which look to encourage more women to be recruited into manual or maintenance roles at the local authority. These schemes also aim to better retain female members of staff once they are in these types of jobs.

Targets and strategies designed to increase the representation of women are also setup at ten of the local authorities surveyed.

Efforts being made include:

• North Tyneside Council having an Equity, Diversity and Inclusion policy in place alongside other initiatives which form a commitment to improve both recruitment and retention of female colleagues across the local authority.
• City of Wolverhampton Council having a fair and transparent recruitment process, which sees diverse interview panels and anonymised applications in place when someone looks to join the local authority as an employee.
• Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council aiming to set Key Performance Indicators which will encourage an increased representation of women in manual and maintenance roles at the local authority when setting out their workforce strategy.
• The People Plan is an initiative at Tameside Metropolitan Council, which includes a strategic aim to form a diverse, hybrid and inclusive workforce.
• Newcastle City Council’s City Operations have been involved in some Women into Construction programmes in recent years, where efforts were made to increase the number of women in the sector through work alongside not-for-profit organisation Women into Construction and Gateshead College.

Natalie Ashcroft HR Business Partner at Travis Perkins and also member of the D&I board, commented: “Travis Perkins is always challenging ourselves, our colleagues and our peers on the gendered imbalance that still exists within our industry. Creating an inclusive environment where everyone belongs is an important message that we want to put across.

“Our FOI request has shown some positive steps in the number of councils which have recruited more women than men into manual or maintenance roles in recent years. There appears to be a lot of effort being made by various local authorities to encourage more women to be recruited, retained and represented in these types of jobs.

“However, more needs to be done. Only three of the councils who responded to our FOI have more women in the roles focused on than men, with many local authorities admitting they do not have any specific policies, initiatives, programmes or targets which could change this underrepresentation.”

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