Women step up to the top jobs at Wakefield Council: Equality initiative wins Opportunity Now award

An award‐winning equality scheme has helped almost to treble the proportion of senior‐management jobs held by women at Wakefield Council over the last six years. When the Stepping Up scheme was launched, in 1996, 69 percent of the council’s employees were women, but only 13 percent of senior‐management jobs were held by women and there were no female chief officers. Today, almost 32 percent of senior‐management positions are held by women and two out of five chief officers are women. “What is more, gender equality has improved for all employees, whatever their work,” said Coral Taylor, who was appointed dedicated Stepping Up monitoring officer in 2000.