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During the 23rd session of the Committee of Experts on Public Administration (CEPA), held in 2024, its working group on public sector workforce matters recalled the CEPA governance principles of “non-discrimination” and “leaving no one behind” under the umbrella of “inclusiveness” when establishing and managing the public sector workforce.
There have been important advances in public sector workforces worldwide in terms of gender equality, particularly supported by the explicit endorsement of international and multilateral organizations and the subsequent growing amount of data and indicators on gender integrated into governance measures. However, more needs to be done regarding other dimensions, such as race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, migration status or other forms of exclusion based on professional elitism and other forms of discrimination in the workplace.
A representative bureaucracy is seen as another mean to promote equity because it allows minorities and their interests and preferences to be represented within the public sector workforce. A public institution can be passively representative if the demographics of its public servants reflect those of the general population. Studies have found that passive representation can be indicative of diversity gains and serve as a measure of enfranchisement for diverse groups. In contrast, a public institution would be actively representative if its public servants replied to, pushed for, and put forward the needs of their disfranchised demographic counterparts.
Progress toward inclusion is, however, hindered by insufficient data or indicators on public service workforce diversity. In the context of the 2030 Agenda, the only related SDG indicators are 16.7.1, namely the “proportions of positions in national and local institutions, including (a) the legislatures; (b) the public service; and (c) the judiciary, compared to national distributions, by sex, age, persons with disabilities and population groups”, 16.7.2, namely the “proportion of population who believe decision-making is inclusive and responsive, by sex, age, disability and population group, and 16.b.1, namely the “proportion of population reporting having personally felt discriminated against or harassed in the previous 12 months on the basis of a ground of discrimination prohibited under international human rights law”, neglecting other dimensions of persistent exclusion, such as race or migratory status.
Good practices to measure public sector diversity have emerged, such as OECD’s Pilot Index for the Development of a Diverse Central Government Workforce, developed in 2020, which focuses on three dimensions: (1) the diversity of the public sector workforce, (2) the availability of data for measuring and tracking diversity in the public sector workforce, and (3) the use of tools to attract and recruit diverse employees at all levels.
The use of specific policies and measurable objectives and targets for under-represented groups are the strongest mechanisms for diversity management. In 2021, a review of the public sector workforce in 33 OECD countries, for example, showed that 24 were using diversity targets to benefit persons with disabilities and 14 were using diversity targets to ensure gender balance, while an additional 7 countries were targeting gender balance, but only at the senior levels of public administration. However, other under-represented groups, such as people from disadvantaged or migrant backgrounds and ethnic minorities, are in general targeted by specific policies rather than targets.
Last, but not least, inequalities within the public service workforce hinder progress toward a more inclusive public administration and demand a just and fair remuneration system of the public sector workforce. Aligning representation with a merit-based and professionalized public sector workforce and deliberatively advancing diversity management will lead to a more inclusive workforce, which, in turn, can enhance people’s trust, strengthen democracy, and enhance public sector innovation.
By Alketa Peci, Member of the Committee of Experts on Public Administration