Workforce Data — Diversity and inclusion 2021

Diversity and inclusion are at the heart of the Public Service. They’re about reflecting and valuing the communities that we’re here to serve.

The Public Service has been focused on improving diversity and inclusion for some time now. We have a comprehensive programme of work, called Papa Pounamu. Papa Pounamu has 5 commitment areas that are focused on making the most positive difference for all our people across all dimensions of diversity. Public Service chief executives have agreed to make these commitments mandatory in their workplaces.

Papa Pounamu Diversity and Inclusion progress across the Public Service

We’re starting to see some positive results from this work. The latest data shows that the Public Service is becoming more diverse, for example:

• Māori (16.4%), Pacific (10.2%), Asian (12.5%) representation in the Public Service workforce increased over the past year and new recruits are more ethnically diverse than our existing workforce
• the number of women in leadership continues to rise (53.5%)
• pay gaps are continuing to close.

We’ve been reporting on demographic information since 2000. We’ve also got better information on our faith, disability, and rainbow communities.

This year is the first time we can also report on how our people experience inclusion at work.

• Just under three quarters (72%) of our people feel they have access to employee-led networks relevant to them.
• Most of our people feel they can be themselves at work (82%).
• Having better data helps us to understand our progress, what’s going well and where we need to do more.

Diversity and inclusion