The Department of Finance has only had female bosses, yet it trails other departments when it comes to equal gender representation in the top ranks.
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Data released by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) on Thursday revealed which agencies had the best representation at their uppermost levels - known as key management personnel roles - in 2022.
These roles include secretaries or other agency heads, and often encompass their direct reports, or the executive.
The current Department of Finance was established in 2013, and has had three female secretaries - Rosemary Huxtable, Jane Halton and Jenny Wilkinson - yet only 39 per cent of its key management personnel are women.
This is among the lowest of the 16 departments and two major agencies - Services Australia and the Australian Taxation Office.
![Department of Finance secretary Jenny Wilkinson. Picture by Gary Ramage Department of Finance secretary Jenny Wilkinson. Picture by Gary Ramage](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/143258707/ba0164e9-559a-4549-9bb7-99fd658cf167.jpg/r0_204_4000_2462_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Others with work to do include Treasury (39 per cent female representation), Defence (26 per cent, including military) and Education (38 per cent).
UNSW associate professor of human resources Sue Williamson was not surprised by the results, with the exception of the Department of Education.
"We know that with central agencies, like Treasury and Finance, that the hours are long, and the work is really intense," she said.
"People tend to not stay in those agencies for very long because [of that], so I suspect that has put women off going for promotion, and that's why there are fewer women in those senior leadership positions."
Meanwhile, Defence has had an entrenched "masculinised culture" for some time, she said.
The Department of Veterans' Affairs has the highest proportion of women in key management roles, at 77 per cent, followed by the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, at 68 per cent.
The main public sector union welcomed findings from WGEA that the Commonwealth public sector's enthusiastic uptake of flexible work was likely allowing more women to work full-time.
But the union criticised the use of personal salary agreements in the service, linking them to findings that women were earning an average of $19,000 less per year than their male colleagues.
"The report rightly noted flexible working arrangements and improvements to paid parental leave as gains for gender equality in the APS," Community and Public Sector Union national president Melissa Donnelly said.
"The CPSU would like to see the next WGEA report address the use of Individual Flexibility Arrangements in the APS."
The arrangements allow employees to negotiate salaries above set pay points, but data from the Public Service Commission shows men are utilising the practice slightly more than women.
"We want to see a more transparent and equitable framework for remunerating highly skilled employees," Ms Donnelly said.
"Currently, there is a degree of secrecy surrounding the use of IFAs and that secrecy has consequences for gender equality."