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Executive Summary

CSO Corporate Report,

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) is Ireland’s national statistical office and is an independent organisation within the Civil Service. The findings of this report are that the CSO has a Gender Pay Gap of 6.9% in its workforce in favour of male employees. The Gender Pay Gap refers to the difference in the average hourly pay of male and female employees across a workforce. It is important to state that this is not the same as unequal pay. Paying women less than men for the same job on account of their gender is illegal and outlawed by equality legislation. All CSO employees are aligned to Civil Service pay grades which provide for equal pay for equal work irrespective of gender. Our workforce is made up of Civil Service general, professional, technical, and field staff grades. The CSO’s pay and grade structures are set centrally by the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform (DPENDR).

On our snapshot date of 21st June 2024, we had a workforce of 1,080 staff members, consisting of 595 females and 485 males, across a diverse range of grades. The CSO has a unique staffing structure within the Civil Service, as in addition to our general Civil Service grade staff, we employ the largest team of Statisticians and Senior Statisticians in the country to conduct our statistical and analytical work. Traditionally, many staff in these grades have been male in line with other STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) careers. Furthermore, the CSO employs a large team of Survey Interviewers to collect our survey data, which is aligned with the Clerical Officer grade and traditionally the majority of staff in this grade have been female. As a result, there is gender imbalance at certain levels of the organisation. However, there is evidence that the level of imbalance in these grades is gradually decreasing with time.

It is also important to note that the CSO has both an annual and a cyclical programme of work which requires hiring additional staff on a temporary basis which can impact the size and composition of the workforce on the Gender Pay Gap reporting snapshot data (See Appendix B).

The analysis of our Gender Pay Gap data in 2024 found that the biggest impact on the CSO’s average hourly rate continues to be the grade at which someone works at. As a result of this, gender difference by grade is the leading cause of the gap, given that:

  • There is a higher number of males in higher grades (Assistant Principal and Statistician levels upwards).
  • There is a higher number of females in the lower grades of Clerical Officer and Survey Interviewer.

To reduce the CSO’s Gender Pay Gap we must continue to focus on achieving a better gender balance across all the grades in the CSO. This report also includes information on the measures to be implemented and those already in place to progress gender equality and improve the representation of women in the senior management grades.

Recruitment in the CSO is conducted both in-house by the CSO’s Recruitment team plus externally by publicjobs.ie which is the centralised recruitment agency for the Civil and Public Service. General service grade posts in the CSO are largely filled by publicjobs.ie with the CSO assigned the next successful candidate from order of merit on open and interdepartmental panels without regard to gender. The CSO conducts its own recruitment for specialist roles such as those in statistical, analytical, and technology areas, as well as survey field staff. The CSO also conducts its own internal promotion competitions. All competitions conducted by the CSO follow the Commission for Public Service Appointments (CPSA) Codes of Practice.

The CSO must continue to focus on its own recruitment activity to ensure there are no inadvertent barriers to female participation and successful progression in the competitions under our remit. There is evidence that we are gradually progressing towards greater female representation at the higher grades. However, due to the low number of appointments to these grades, it will take time. There remains significant gender difference in Technology roles with the majority of staff in these roles currently occupied by males.

It will also be important to monitor closely all flexible working initiatives, to ensure there are no unintended negative impacts on career progression for women, particularly as there continues to be both gender and grade imbalance in their uptake. However, the majority of CSO staff, both male and female, have been availing of blended working arrangements since November 2022.