A Social Report for Ireland Volume II - the NESC Website

160Table 7.2Suports for People of Working Age ExamplePolicy CycleIndicatorsStrategyTo ensure opportunities to balance workand family commitments consistent withbusiness needsDiagnosticPeople who are trying to balance work andfamily commitments – who, how many, where,what are their requirements, and impact of theeconomic recessionInputsWork of the National Framework Committeefor Work-Life Balance PoliciesPolicy (legislative) changeBudgetPromotion with employers & trade unionsImproved caring optionsBaselineNo. of people requiring a change to theirwork-life balance arrangementsRecord of current situationOutputsNo. of flexible working arrangements availableNos. (both men and women) availing of flexibleworking arrangementsPerformanceRecord of changesInstitutional ‘helpers’ and ‘hinderers’OutcomesPeople having a better balance of work-lifebalance arrangementsSystemicMore equal sharing of ‘committed time’ and‘non-committed time’ between men and womenand in line with European best practiceThe systemic indicator would employ a time use survey to measure the amountof time allocated to different activities, with a view to identifying the ratio of‘committed’ to ‘non-committed’ or free time. This indicator could be complementedby an indicator measuring satisfaction with hours of paid work and satisfactionwith free time (an update of the current analysis carried out by the EuropeanFoundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions).A key factor in monitoring quality outcomes is the availability of good quality,timely data. While there is a vast array of information on the working agepopulation, information could be improved in relation to: access to primary healthcare, access to and use of public transport; satisfaction with care arrangements(for both carers and cared for) and well as the ability to disaggregate informationby age, gender, family status, marital status, ethnicity, socio-economic status,employment status, disability, membership of the Travelling community, sexualorientation and religion. An essential requirement to improving our analysis andhence understanding of the working age population is the need to match andlink data, as recommended in the 2003 report of the Steering Group on Social andEquality Statistics, Developing Irish Social and Equality Statistics to Meet QualityNeeds. These data sources then need to be applied to monitoring progress on policyactions and measuring outcomes.