Defined entities have a responsibility to make progress on gender equality. Publicly reporting on progress and data ensures that defined entities are transparent and accountable to their employees and the communities they serve.
Publishing progress reports on your website
As a defined entity, you must publish your progress report on your organisation’s external website. We recommend you also publish the progress report on your organisation’s internal website.
The Commission has assessed progress reports for compliance under the Act. All duty holders were notified about the outcome of assessments, and advised of a timeframe for publishing. Progress reports were published in December 2024.
If you published your progress report before it is compliance checked and updates are required, you will need to update your published version. If you published early, we suggest you include a disclaimer noting that:
- the progress report has not been checked for compliance by the Commissioner
- the progress report may be subject to changes.
You must not alter the wording in the required sections. However, you can fix any grammatical errors.
You must remove any personal or potentially identifying information before publishing your progress report. This also applies to any supporting documents.
You are not required to publish your workplace gender audit data or employee experience data. You may instead wish to link to the Commission's public data insights portal. This is where 2021 and 2023 summary data for all defined entities is presented.
Format of progress reports on your website
You can choose to publish your progress reports in the following formats:
- in the progress report Excel template submitted to the Commission
- in an alternative designed or accessible format.
Publishing your progress report Excel template is the easiest way to ensure you have published all of the required content. Publishing your supporting documents is optional but strongly recommended.
Redesigning your progress report
You may choose to present your progress report in a designed or accessible format for your website. If you do choose to reformat your progress report, you must include all 'required' sections of the progress report for:
- gender impact assessments
- strategies and measures
- workplace gender equality indicators.
You must not alter the wording in the required sections. However, you can fix any grammatical errors.
The Commission strongly encourages you to also include the 'recommended' sections.
The redesigned progress report can include summary information. You may also choose to produce a separate report that contains a summary of the full progress report. However, summary information should accompany the complete progress report. It must not replace the sections required to meet compliance under the Gender Equality Act(opens in a new window).
You may also choose to produce a separate report that contains a summary of the full progress report. This should accompany the complete progress report but cannot replace it.
Making your progress report accessible
Most organisations covered by the Gender Equality Act will need to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Version 2.1 Level AA standard(opens in a new window).
We have published a guide to help you prepare your Excel spreadsheet to address known accessibility issues in the template. You can download our guidance below.
It will take you 5-10 minutes to make your progress report accessible.
What the Commission will publish
How the Commission will publish progress reports
Progress reports have been published in the Excel templates submitted by defined entities. The Commission also published any supporting documents authorised for publishing.
These documents are available to the public on the public data insights portal(opens in a new window). They are published in the 'plans and progress' section, under each organisation. This is also where the 2021 Gender Equality Action Plans and other supporting documents are published.
The Commission published all progress reports in December 2024.
How the Commission will publish audit data
The Commissioner has published summary-level data from progress audits on the public data insights portal(opens in a new window). Data will be presented as visual reports.
Data from each organisation’s progress audit was published if it was assessed as meeting the requirements under the Act.
Some data may not be suitable for publishing. In these cases, sections of the insights portal's report may display a message that suitable data was not supplied.
If you are a reporting platform user, you can preview how the Commission will publish your data. To do this, view the 'Public (preview)' report within the Reports section of the Gender Equality Act Reporting Platform(opens in a new window).
The Commission published audit data in December 2024.
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