Firms told they can hire women ahead of men

Employers will be allowed to hire women ahead of equally qualified men under new laws announced today by the Government.

The new "positive action" legislation is intended to increase female representation in the workplace. However, there are fears that it could lead to unfair discrimination.

The new powers will allow firms to select ethnic minority candidates ahead of equally qualified white people, while men could also be favoured in areas, such as primary school teaching, in which they are under-represented.

The new laws, announced today by Lynne Featherstone, the Government's equalities minister, follow concern that despite the increasing female success in schools and universities, women remain under-represented in many areas of work.

In a separate move, employers will also be asked to carry out equality pay audits in a bid to close the gender gap in the remuneration given to men and women. Ministers have decided not to follow the previous government's approach of threatening to make these audits compulsory.

Ms Featherstone today insisted, however, that the changes would give women and others a fairer deal in the workplace without causing unjust treatment of men or excessive bureaucracy for employers.

"These plans are absolutely not about political correctness, or red tape, or quotas," she said. "It is about giving employers the choice to make their workforce more diverse."

When deciding whether candidates are equally qualified, employers will not have to judge solely on the basis of formal or academic qualifications and will also be able to take into account an applicant's "general ability, suitability, competence and experience".

That will raise fears that such decisions could be highly subjective and trigger possible legal action for unfair discrimination by rejected candidates, although ministers insist that the new laws will help to protect employers.

As well as "positive action" to help women, firms could also be allowed to use the new laws to increase the proportion of disabled, gay or transgender employees on their staff.

Ms Featherstone's announcement came during a speech in London today at which details of the latest FTSE 100 survey on women's representation in the boardroom were released.

It shows that only 12.5 per cent of directors of these companies are female. The proportion has remained around 12 per cent for the past three years which Ms Featherstone said suggested that there remained a "really big mountain" to climb to achieve fairer representation.