On board

Email Newsletter of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs Nominations Service
December 2005

Christmas greetings from the Nominations Service team, and a very warm welcome to the second edition of On Board, the newsletter for women who use the Nominations Service. Click here for a PDF version.

Women are 50 percent membership by the year 2010

 
Our target is that women should represent around 50 percent of the membership of government statutory bodies by the year 2010.   We are not solely accountable for this result of course.   Our role is to contribute to it by ensuring that the agencies and Ministers responsible for statutory body appointments have a pool of women with the right skills and competencies from which to choose.

So where are we now?

Women represent 41% of the membership of government statutory bodies!

The Nominations Service recently completed the first ever whole-of-government stocktake of government statutory bodies, and found that women were 41% of the total membership as at December 2004.

The stocktake shows there are:

• 397 government statutory bodies
• a total of 2605 members, and
• women represent 41% (1063) of the total.

As to be expected departments with a traditionally high proportion of women’s involvement, such as the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Social Development and the Department of Internal Affairs, have proven to be the star performers.

Congratulations and bouquets go to:

• The Ministry of Social Development - It administers eight boards with a total membership of 31, of whom 19 (61%) are women
  

• The Ministry of Health - It administers 67 boards with a total membership of 591, of whom 302 (51%) are women.
  

• The Department of Internal Affairs - It administers 38 boards with a total membership of 268, of whom 130 (49%) are women.
  

• The Minister of Sport - The Minister’s Office administers two boards with a total membership of 14, of whom seven (50%) are women.

The next stocktake – December 2005

Early in the New Year, we will be gathering the data as at December 2005 so that we can track any changes from the 2004 figures.  

We anticipate that we should be in a position to finalise the 2005 figures by March/April, and will report to you probably by May on progress.

Business as usual

In the last newsletter we advised that the run-up to the election had brought a significant slowdown in the number of board appointments being processed.  The downturn began around May and continued until November.  Now that government is in full swing again, so are board appointments.

Since October we have completed nominations for around 37 boards and our work schedule is very full until the end of January.

Updating CVs

It is always helpful to us (and to you) if you keep your cv up-to-date.   

If you have submitted a CV recently, just email us the changes or additions and we will act on that.  If, however, your CV is more than two years old, please email us a new electronic copy.

If in doubt, then give us a call to discuss what to do - Joan (04) 916 5849 or Sean (04) 916 5814.

MWA Website

The Ministry of Women’s Affairs has launched a new-look website with many new feaures and resources.

New content includes features that users of the previous Ministry site said would be useful.    

“The top two items requested were ‘information on women in New Zealand’ and ‘research / statistics on women in New Zealand’,” said Ministry Chief Executive Shenagh Gleisner.  “When we were building the new site, we tried to reflect that interest with a new Women in New Zealand section. It includes a great timeline which gives an overview of the history of women in New Zealand, and brief information presented under the headings people tend to ask for - such as Pacific women, or women with disabilities.

“For statistical information on all women in New Zealand we link to the excellent and up-to-date information on women on the Statistics New Zealand site and other government sites. This is part of trying to take a whole-of-government approach – if another part of government has produced the information and already has it available on the web, we link to it rather than recreate it on our site.”

Follow this link to view the updated site: www.mwa.govt.nz

Meeting the Team

We are always pleased to meet and talk with women from our database.  It’s helpful to us to be able to expand our knowledge of you and ‘put a face to a name’.

If you are going to be in Wellington and have the time, just give Joan a call on (04) 916 5849, and we will set up a meeting.

Au revoir until the next edition.