Public Health Scotland’s commitment to gender equality: Equally Safe at Work

Public Health Scotland (PHS) is participating in the Equally Safe at Work accreditation programme, reinforcing our commitment to advancing gender equality across our workplace.

Having achieved the Equally Safe at Work Development Award in 2023, we’re now working towards achieving our Bronze Award in June 2027. This programme provides a structured framework to support meaningful and lasting change for all our employees. 

As part of this work, we’ll be undertaking a range of activities to promote gender equality and strengthen support for victim-survivors of violence against women. These include:

• Using Integrated Impact Assessment (IIA) for hybrid working to inform working practices
• Assessing recruitment and progression processes
• Delivering awareness-raising sessions. 

We recognise the strong link between gender inequality and violence against women. Addressing workplace inequality is a crucial step in preventing violence against women and creating a safer, more inclusive environment.

Gender equality is a key workplace priority for PHS. It benefits everyone and helps ensure that all employees feel safe, respected and supported at work. We also recognise that people’s experiences of employment are shaped by intersecting inequalities. This means some women may face additional barriers and disadvantage, including racially minoritised women, disabled women, lesbian, gay and bisexual women, and trans women.

Through the Equally Safe at Work programme, we‘ll continue to develop policies and practices that better reflect the diverse needs of our workforce and align with our values. This supports our wider aim of improving the social and economic factors that enable good health and helps us work towards achieving our strategic aim of reducing health inequalities in Scotland.

We’re committed to ensuring that the changes we implement are sustainable and embedded across the organisation. We’ll regularly review our progress to ensure our approach continues to meet the needs of our workforce and that the principles of Equally Safe at Work are fully integrated into everything we do.