Equality policy in the Civil Service : a place for civil servants' perceptions of equality?

• Main Author: Horan, Catherine
• Published: Queen's University Belfast 2013
• Subjects: 352.63
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.601659

The Irish civil service advances an equality strategy based on equality of opportunity, with acknowledgement of the place for equality of recognition. Baker et a1 (2009) suggest that equality can be viewed in five dimensions and that equality of opportunity is a liberal egalitarian principle that can be imp roved upon and replaced by equality of condition. This thesis considers Civil Servants ' views on equality to gain insight into the way that they perceive equality. It tests the relationship between support for a politics of redistribution and a politics of recognition. Charles Taylor has argued that there is a relationship between the extent to which people can develop and the extent to which they are recognised. A focus upon the perceptions of Civil Servants accommodates the polities of recognition which has been advocated by Taylor. An analysis of perceptions of equality of staff at one government department has been conducted in order to find out what equality means to Civil Servants and to investigate equality provision and awareness, and job satisfaction and personal satisfaction in the Civil Service. It is asserted that the research on Civil Servants' perceptions of equality can be employed to review and set equality goals and policies.