A workplace where gender equity is embedded in every system, championed at every level, and experienced by every person - across all identities and all stages of working life.
Background
The VGSO undertakes 4 key activities to meet our obligations under the Gender Equality Act, 2020:
consider, promote and take positive action towards achieving gender equality
undertake a workplace gender audit every 4 years
develop and implement a Gender Equality Action Plan (GEAP) every 4 years
report on gender equality progress to the Public Sector Gender Equality Commission every 2 years.
Seven workplace gender equality indicators underpin our gender equality activities. These indicators are set out by the Act and represent the key areas where progress must be made.
Gender pay equity
Gender composition at all levels of the workforce
Gender composition of governing bodies
Workplace sexual harassment
Recruitment and promotion
Gendered work segregation
Leave and flexibility
Focus areas
Our GEAP sets out actions structured around three priority focus areas:
Fair, equitable and bias-resistant workforce systems: embedding gender equity into hiring, pay, promotion and development processes
Accountability, ownership and visible progress: making gender equality everyone's responsibility through clear expectations and transparent reporting
Culture, inclusion and sustainable work across all life stages: enable safe, inclusive, sustainable work - for everyone - with targeted supports where needed
Progress report update
Key achievements for reporting period
Workforce gender composition remains strong and stable, with women continuing to represent approximately 77% of the workforce, broadly reflecting gender patterns across the government legal sector.
Participation in part-time work increased for both women and men, with a notable 92% increase in men working part-time since 2023. This is a positive indicator of greater sharing of caring responsibilities which supports longer-term gender equality outcomes.
Average parental leave taken by men increased from 4.8 to 5.9 weeks and carer's leave participation also rose, contributing to a gradual narrowing of traditional gender caregiving patterns.
Median gender pay gap measures improved, suggesting better pay equity outcomes for the majority of employees. This reflects the impact of strengthened remuneration governance and pay equity controls implemented since the previous audit.
Recruitment outcomes became more gender balanced, with men's representation among new hires increasing by almost 5% since 2023, supporting greater workforce diversity while maintaining strong representation of women.
Employee perceptions of flexibility improved significantly, with favourable ratings increasing for both women and men.
Our progress against the 7 gender equality indicators
VGSO's gender composition remained consistent between reporting periods, with women continuing to make up 77% of our workforce, indicating the organisation has maintained strong female representation, reflecting industry trends for the legal profession.
Representation of employees of self-described gender remained consistent across reporting periods, suggesting sustained inclusion and confidence in workforce gender reporting practices.
Part-time work increased for both women and men and the gender gap in part-time work narrowed, driven by a 92% increase in men working part-time since the last audit.
Women continue to hold the majority of governing body positions, representing 66.7% of members in the 2025 audit period
The gender composition of our governing body has become more balanced over time
The small size of our ELT cohort means a single appointment or departure can materially influence gender representation percentages between reporting periods.
While pay equity outcomes were mixed across the reporting period, improved median pay gap suggests pay equity outcomes have strengthened for the majority of our employees
Senior leader gender pay gap improved significantly, reversing from 1.9% in favour of men in 2023 to -0.9% in the 2025 reporting period
Pay gaps within most occupational groups remain relatively small, with manager pay gaps remaining stable at approximately 6.5% and the professional workforce gap increasing only slightly from 2.3% to 2.9%. Within clerical and administrative roles, women continue to earn more than men, with the gap increasing from -4.4% to -9.1%.
The overall pay gap is primarily driven by workforce composition and structural workforce factors rather than unequal pay within roles. This includes the concentration of men in higher-paying leadership roles and women in lower-paid clerical and administrative positions, and the sensitivity of mean calculations to a small number of higher paid positions.
VGSO has strengthened its pay equity controls since the previous audit, including People & Culture review of remuneration decisions before offers are made and the implementation of monitoring mechanisms to assess the gender impacts of role reclassification and role resizing activities.
There were no formal sexual harassment complaints submitted during the reporting period.
Anonymous reports of sexual harassment in the 2025 People Matter survey decreased from 2.8% in 2023 to 2.0% in 2025, indicating an overall reduction in reported experiences of sexual harassment across the workforce.
Experiences of sexual harassment reported by men reduced to zero, declining from 2.0% in 2023 to 0% in 2025. In 2025, all anonymous reports of sexual harassment were from women.
Recruitment outcomes became more gender balanced during the reporting period, with men's representation among new hires increasing from 25.2% in 2023 to 29.9% in 2025. Women continue to comprise the majority of recruits (70.1%), consistent with broader workforce and legal sector trends.
Promotion outcomes broadly reflected workforce composition, with women accounting for 75.5% of promotions in 2025.
Employee perceptions of recruitment improved significantly across both genders, with favourable responses increasing from 62.8% to 71.8% for women and from 65.9% to 77.6% for men. These results suggest growing confidence in the fairness and transparency of recruitment processes.
Improvements in recruitment perceptions are likely linked to enhancements to our Performance and Development Process, introduced in early 2025 to support greater consistency and transparency in recruitment and promotion practices.
Progress has been made towards greater sharing of caring responsibilities, with the average parental leave taken by men increasing from 4.8 weeks in 2023 to 5.9 weeks in the 2025 reporting period. At the same time, the average parental leave taken by women decreased slightly from 25.6 weeks to 24.6 weeks, contributing to a gradual narrowing of the parental leave gap.
The gender gap in carer's leave also narrowed over the reporting period. Men's uptake increased from 13.6% to 16.7%, reflecting growing participation by men in caring responsibilities.
Formal flexible work arrangement uptake declined across employee and senior leader groups, likely reflecting growing use of alternative flexibility options, including hybrid work and flexible scheduling.
The 2025 People Matter survey showed strong employee confidence in flexible work culture for both women and men. Favourable perceptions among women increased from 79.3% to 87.4%, while men's perceptions increased from 87.8% to 91.4%, the highest level recorded across all audit periods.
At the VGSO, occupation classifications fall under 3 areas: managers, professionals, and clerical/administrative. For the reporting period:
Professionals cohort remained broadly representative of overall workforce composition, with gender representation remaining relatively stable across audit periods and closely aligned to VGSO's workforce profile
Manager roles shifted towards greater male representation while clerical and administrative roles were over-represented by women
VGSO's occupational segregation profile mirrors broader trends across the Australian legal profession, where women are more likely to be represented in entry-level and support roles, while men are more concentrated in leadership positions. This is reflected in the over-representation of women in Clerical and Administrative roles and men in management positions.
Full progress report
View the full progress report submitted to the Commission:
