Welcome. Thank you for joining us. My name is Bryony. Over this short session, we'll focus on the 2026 Gender equality action plan template so you know what to do when completing the template. Our offices are located on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation and I wish to acknowledge them as the traditional owners. I would also like to pay our respects to elders past, present and emerging and any Aboriginal elders of other communities who may be watching today.
Today we'll cover why we've introduced the new template for all duty holders provide an overview it, and walk you through how to complete it.
So why have we introduced the new Gender equality action plan template? Firstly, you do not have to use the new Gender equality action plan template, but we strongly recommend that you do. Let's start with where it came from. It was requested by duty holders. During the first GEAP cycle, we heard a clear message from you, the duty holder community. Give us a template so we know exactly how to create a gender equality action plan.
So this template was shaped through consultation with duty holders and other stakeholders to show a clear layout and ease of use. Secondly, a common standard for 300 duty holders. As duty holders, you asked, give us one template so we know exactly what good looks like to meet compliance. And this template delivers exactly that, a single shared structure for use by more than 300 Victorian public sector organisations. Duty holders now have an off the-shelf structure that helps you prepare and submit a compliant GEAP.
And lastly, ease of use for compliance checking. The template makes compliance checking much simpler. We know where everything is because every required element sits in a predictable place. The assessment team can complete compliance checking much faster and this means that we provide you with feedback much quicker.
Let me give you an overview of the template. Now, the template keeps everything simple. Every item is marked as required or recommended. Required items are mandated by the gender equality act and highlighted in blue throughout the template. You have flexibility how you word them, but each must appear in your GEAP for it to be compliant. Recommended items aren't compulsory, yet we strongly encourage you to include them where you can. They really there to help you develop your GEAP and think through all the required elements. They are also often things that you are already doing as part of the process anyway or they allow you to showcase your hard work, lessons learned and achievements.
Completing both the required and recommended components will help ensure your GEAP is evidence-based, informed, realistic, and effective for creating a strong and feasible plan to drive gender equality.
So, navigating the template. Firstly, word count. We've provided indicative word lengths for each section. Treat them as suggestions, not rules. You're free to go over or under the word limit if you have more or less to say. Red explainer text and hyperlinks to guidance. For each step, there is red explainer text to tell you exactly what you need to do to complete the section. There are also links to the relevant sections in the guidance. Click through to find further information in the guidance. We also really encourage you to carefully read the guidance. It has everything you need to know, not just to meet compliance, but to drive change. It's important to emphasise that if you just fill in the template alone without reading the guidance, you are at much greater risk of non-compliance.
Template order. The template follows the order of the steps in the GEAP guidance. It aims to reduce inefficiencies and duplication. However, developing your GEAP can be a cyclical process. You do not have to follow the suggested step-by-step approach. Do what works best in your context. This will vary according to your organisation's resources, skills, and expertise. Cover page and attestation by the head of your organisation. The cover page is new and it asks you to provide important context. It will help us assess your GEAP. The head of your organisation, such as your CEO, must complete the attestation. They must state that they have approved your GEAP. They must also state that your organisation will provide adequate resources to implement the GEAP.
So, if you're not choosing to use the template, make sure it is clear where to find the required components in your GEAP. Here's how you do this. Firstly, include an appendix that lists each component the act requires, strategies, measures, attestation, and the exact page where it appears. Secondly, use clear headings and subheadings that match the sections required under the act. This will help you clearly demonstrate how your GEAP meets compliance. With this in mind, we strongly encourage that you use the template as it outlines exactly what is required to develop your GEAP one that is informed, realistic, and drives real change. It also reduces the guesswork and helps demonstrate compliance.
Before handing over to my colleague Kat, we recommend pausing this webinar, visiting the GEAP guidance page on our website, and downloading the gender equality action plan template. With the template open, you'll be able to scroll through each section in real time as Kat guides you. Over to you, Kat.
Thanks Bryony. Hi everyone, my name is Kathryn. I will run now through how to use the GEAP template. Note that the order the template is intended to mirror the GEAP guidance as much as possible as Bryony raised before while also balancing information flow and efficiency. So first we have the cover page. Please fill in the relevant information including your organisation's name, total number of employees, and the location of your organisation. When your template is complete, you then need to have your CEO or equivalent sign off on your GEAP using the attestation.
Next, we have three recommended sections that aim to support you with setting your organisation up for success.
For section one, using insights from your previous work. If this is your second GEAP, it is good practice to reflect on the learnings of your previous GEAP and progress report as those learnings should inform your GEAP. This may include things that worked and didn't work, things that you would continue doing and stop doing. We do ask this question in your progress report. So you are welcome to copy your answer in this place.
For section two, processes, record keeping and governance. This is space for you to explain the systems you have set up to support your GEAP implementation. You might want to describe your governance arrangement to oversee this work and how you will be tracking your GEAP's implementation and record keeping. We do recommend that you set robust systems up early so that your GEAP has the best opportunity for success and that you are able to collect relevant information along the way that will help you with progress reporting later. This section aims to get you thinking about these things and capture the systems and structures that you have set up.
For section three, leadership commitment, please use this section to summarise your leadership's commitment to your GEAP. You can include your CEO statement here if you wish. You can find more prompting questions, guidance, and content relevant to these sections on our website. Please follow the links in the template to the relevant guidance.
Next, we have part B, which has a mixture of required and recommended sections. Starting with section four, confirming consultation groups. This is a required section. We're just looking for a simple confirmation that you consulted with your governing body, employees, and employee representatives, including any relevant unions, which you are required to do under the act. If you consulted other people and groups, state who you consulted and summarize their relevance in the last row.
For section five, documenting your consultation process. This is a required section. You must describe how you consulted your stakeholder groups. How you consult with these groups is up to you, but we do suggest you consult at least on the findings of your audit and on your proposed GEAP strategies. Summarise all your consultations in this section. At a minimum, you must describe how many consultations you undertook and in what format. For instance, if you did it online or you undertook focus groups and surveys. You may also want to describe the purpose of each consultation session, what groups of people participated in what session, your communication approach and materials, reflection on how the consultation work and learnings for next time, and anything else that is relevant.
For section six, findings from your consultation. This is a recommended section. So, use this section to summarize the discussions and outcomes of your consultations. This section aims to capture what your stakeholders said, including any feedback on your audit results and how you have used their feedback to better understand your audit findings and capture how you used your stakeholders feedback to shape your strategies. You can find more support for each of these sections in the GE guidance.
Next, we have part C of the template. So, considering the gender equality principles, the gender pay equity principles and intersectionality. You are required to do all three sections in developing your GE. The purpose of these sections is for you to explain how you considered the gender equality principles, gender pay equity principles and intersectionality in your j development.
For section seven, consider the gender equality principles and section 8, consider the gender pay equity principles. In developing your GEAP, please summarise how you considered the gender equality principles in section seven and how you considered the gender pay equity principles in section 8. For both of these, please do not list the principles without explaining how they were used in your development and your thinking. Doing this will not pass compliance under the act. The purpose of the principles is to ensure that as public sector agencies, your organisation reflects the principles. You may in fact have included the principles across different parts of your GEAP. If so, you can refer to those sections in your response.
For section nine, consider intersectionality. Please summarise how you considered intersectionality or why you did not. Similarly, for this response, you may have integrated into an intersectional lens across different parts of your GEAP. In that case, you can reference to those sections in your response. For instance, you may have considered intersectionality in terms of who you consulted with or the design of your strategies.
Next we have part D, making a case for change. This section is recommended. Use this section to explain why gender equality matters at your organisation and your organisation's vision for gender equality. This helps to frame how and why you are doing this work. It serves as a great communication tool with your stakeholders. You may even want to talk about the principles and intersectionality here, describing how the principles are or will be reflected in your organisation and how they will be used in your GEAP analysis.
Next, we have part E, analysing your data to identify forms of gender inequality and developing your strategies. So for section 11, identifying underlying causes of gender inequality, this section is recommended. Summarise the underlying causes of gender inequality at your organisation. This might include findings from your consultation and research. We have this section here as a standalone component because the underlying causes of gender inequality likely relate to multiple indicators.
You should be analysing your audit data against each indicator first that you do write in the next section before you try to identify the underlying causes of gender inequality in this section. This is because your audit data reveals quantitative issues and then further research helps you to understand what drives those issues. Doing both data analysis and further research allows you to better understand the gender inequality issues at your organisation. This section also helps you show how your strategies respond to the problems you've identified.
Next, we have all seven indicators with their own sections that look like this. There is also an additional table for other strategies that might not fit neatly under the indicators if you do need it. I'll only go through the first indicator here. This approach does apply to all seven indicators. So, as you can see, there are three sections. First is describing the problem. This is a required component. This is where you include your audit data and describe the issues that your data tells you.
In the template, you will see a range of what's called critical and supplementary performance measures that come prefilled in the template. You are required to make progress against all seven indicators. These performance measures relate to those indicators. They are the best type of measure to help you understand the gender inequality issues in your organization and later to interpret progress. Critical measures are the minimum level of data you should be using and supplementary measures are a step above that if you have capacity to do more.
We strongly recommend that you insert your data against the performance measures. So we have set the performance measures to make it easier for you to work out which data to pay most attention to. You already collect this data as part of your workforce gender audit. So all you need to do is add in the data figures next to analyse audit data. You can use other data points too. The performance measures in the template are the minimum to understand the relevant indicator.
Once you have provided appropriate data, you also need to explain why there is or isn't a problem based on your data. So you can do this by stating the gender inequality problem that your data reveals. For example, while we are a women concentrated organisation, the vast majority of our senior leaders are men. You can discuss where you haven't made progress since your last GEAP, if that is relevant, that you will address in this GEAP. You can include a problem statement to summarise your analysis. You may describe additional data sources you may have used to understand the problem. You may want to highlight any gaps in your data or you may want to outline key insights from undertaking intersectional analysis. For reporting platform users, we have a new report that is available on the platform that calculates the performance measures using your organisation's data. More information on this will be released soon.
So the second part is setting metrics. This includes measures and targets. Measures are required and targets are recommended. The key difference between describing the problem and setting metrics is that the former is about analyzing and understanding the issues now while the latter is about how you will understand those issues and to improve those issues in the future. Measures are what you will measure to assess the performance of your strategies. They help you understand what data to keep track of and will tell you whether you need to change or adapt your strategies.
We have prefilled the template for you with the performance measures again. And we strongly encourage you to use these measures to understand your future progress. You do not need to add your data in here. You can add additional measures if you want to. The measures are set against the indicator level and not at the individual strategy level. This is because we're interested in outcomes more than successes of your process at the strategy level.
As with targets, these are the numerical goals for the indicator. Targets are helpful to identify where you want to be compared to where you are now. For instance, by 2030, gender composition is more balanced across all levels of our organisation with at least 45% women, 45% men, and 10% flexible.
The third section here is strategies. So setting strategies against each indicator is required. Setting responsible role or the team timelines for completion and indicating whether that strategy relates to other indicators are all recommended for strategies. These are the specific actions you plan to take to drive progress on your indicator and that is based on the analysis of the issues found through your audit consultation and research. Feel free to add more rows if you need to. If you have identified no gender inequality issue for any of the indicators, you should include a maintenance strategy which makes sure you do not lose what has been what has been achieved. For instance, your governing body may already be gender balanced and diverse. In this instance, you could include a strategy to monitor its composition. This could be at regular intervals or points of turnover. This is called a maintenance strategy. On the other hand, you could include a strategy to build the capacity of the governing body to lead on gender equality. This is called an extension strategy. The other three columns are straightforward, but please do not identify any employees by name for confidentiality and privacy reasons.
Finally, this advice applies to all indicators. You are required to make progress against all seven. The only difference is that each indicator has its own performance measures that relate to that indicator. The last table after indicator 7 again is optional. So if you do not use it, please feel free to delete it.
We've now come to the final page of the template. Here we have section 13 identifying current and required resources. This is recommended. Please summarise your assessment of what resourcing you need to implement your GEAP. This section aims to have you think about the resourcing needs to implement your GEAP over its life cycle. Section 14, developing a resourcing plan. This is required. Please summarize what resourcing is allocated to developing and implementing your GEAP. Together, these sections ensure that your GEAP is prioritised, that you have the right resourcing in place, and that your GEAP can withstand organisational change.
Finally, please submit your GEAP by 1st of May 2026 through the reporting platform. Please use a GEAP checklist to check all required components are completed, which you will find online through our GEAP guidance. You can remove page one text and the instructional text which is in red font across the GEAP template.
If you wish to upload a designed version of your GEAP for your website, it must include all the required sections and it must not alter the wording you submitted to the commissioner in the required sections. Though you may fix any spelling or grammatical errors, we do recommend, however, that you hold off until compliance checking is complete and you have received feedback in case you do want to make any changes.
Finally, you may reorder the content of your GEAP in your public facing version to suit your preference, including any additional information not required by the commissioner. and you may include your completed template as an appendix in your designed version.
For further support and learning needs, please visit our on demand webinars available on our website. That brings us to the end of the presentation today. Thank you so much for joining us and we hope you found this useful.
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