To ask the Minister for Women and Equality what steps she plans to take to promote good practice in employment opportunity through the report and list of good employers recently published by the Government. (201393)

In their report “Shaping a Fairer Future” (published February 2006) The Women and Work Commission recommended that the Government, with the help of partners like Opportunity Now, should build up a set of exemplar companies who would be prepared to pilot projects to tackle the causes of the gender pay gap.

The Government responded by setting up such a programme, run under contract by Opportunity Now, the gender arm of Business in the Community. A list of 113 exemplar employers was compiled and published as an online report in March 2008.

The Government Equalities Office will continue to work with Opportunity Now and other partners in sharing and disseminating lessons learned from the Exemplar Employers programme. We are presently in discussion with Opportunity Now on next steps.