Equal Employment Opportunity Annual Report – 1995 Overview

This is the eighth annual report prepared by the Reserve Bank on its equal employment opportunity program. The program involves the development, implementation and monitoring of EEO plans. 1994/95 is the second year of the current three year EEO Plan, which is the fourth formal plan developed by the Bank.

The principles underlying the plans are to ensure that individual worth is respected, that administrative practices and decisions reflect equity and that all staff are afforded appropriate opportunities to advance and to enhance their skills and experience.

Broad corporate responsibility for ensuring that EEO principles are translated into practice, that legislative requirements are met and that developing trends are analysed and reviewed, rests with the Bank's EEO Policy Committee and the Personnel Policy Department. The current plan also reflects a clear delegation of responsibility and accountability for EEO issues to operational management, reinforcing the concept that EEO is an integral part of day-to-day operations. Delegation has been achieved through the creation of EEO plans for each department and branch, the identification of local initiatives and, where relevant, the establishment of local specific targets.

During the past year, staff numbers throughout the Bank continued to decline as a result of natural attrition and a voluntary redundancy program to manage the exit of surplus staff. These changes continue to complicate analysis of some of the underlying trends and make it difficult to draw firm conclusions about the effectiveness of some EEO initiatives. Nevertheless, they have not deterred the continued active implementation of the Bank's EEO program.

Details of the initiatives and progress made during the past twelve months are presented in the following pages. These are described under the Section 6 headings of the Equal Employment Opportunity (Commonwealth Authorities) Act 1987.