LG Professionals WA continues to strongly advocate for gender balance in local government, particularly in senior leadership levels. To assist the Gender Balance Framework Committee in our ongoing advocacy and capacity building activities, a gender balance survey was put out to Local Governments in 2023 to gather information on perceptions of gender balance in local government workplaces and to compare these responses to the previous survey released in 2021.
We are pleased to provide an infographic that provides a summary of the survey findings - your input and participation was greatly valued and appreciated.
There were improvements around workplaces encouraging flexible work arrangements and the perception of gender balance in local government was overall better in 2023 than in 2021. There remains to be a level of perception for women in local government that their gender is a barrier to their career development.
To continue our advocacy in this area, the Association will focus on the following key actions in the next 24 months:
- Providing professional development opportunities to officers to address unconscious bias
- Working with WALGA to enhance elected members' awareness of unconscious bias in CEO recruitment process
- Facilitating forums to highlight Women Leaders in Local Government
- Continue to promote good organisational practices that encourage gender balance
- Monitoring the statistics of local government gender balance at leadership levels
- Promoting the importance of a gender balance framework and providing an easily adoptable template for local governments to utilise.
If you have any feedback you wish to provide to the Association on this topic, please contact CEO Candy Choo at [email protected]