Narrowing the gender gap could add £230 million to Liverpool City Region’s economy each year – here are the women with a plan of how to get there

The ‘One Day’ report offers a road map to harnessing gender equality as an economic driver across the Liverpool City Region.

Over 20 diverse women came together on 'One Day' to discuss how the Liverpool City Region could better harness gender equality as an economic driver

The landmark report is set to launch with a special event at The Women’s Organisation this Friday (6 March), coinciding with International Women’s Day celebrations.

Developed in October 2019, ‘One Day’ bought together over 20 diverse women from different sectors, geographies and communities who donated one day of their time to start to rethink the Liverpool City Region’s industrial strategy from a woman’s perspective.

Event organisers now hope that more women will attend the launch event to add their voices and priorities to the discussion.

Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram will officially launch the report, while Dr Paula Burkinshaw, Visiting Senior Research Fellow into gender and leadership at The University of Leeds, will deliver a keynote speech on the day.

With Deloitte projecting that targeted help for female founders could see a £100 billion boost to the UK economy over the next 10 years - translating to £230 million every year in the Liverpool City Region – the report’s main message is that the region has a unique opportunity to harness gender equality as an economic driver within its local industrial strategy.

‘One Day’ contains 26 recommendations centring on the beliefs that:

• Harnessing gender and diversity is essential to fulfilling our economic potential as a region.
• The care and hospitality sectors are recognised as valuable industries which will add significantly to the region’s economic productivity.
• We are now recognising creativity as a competency that will support growth across the economy.
• The Social Economy is an accelerator of local economies found to be more competitive than traditional firms.
• Community owned and controlled action on all issues – on local and global scale - will reap better results and ROI. 
• The metrics for measuring the outcomes and successes of the LCR Combined Authority industrial strategy need to be updated to include wellbeing, the value of health, the value of care and our aim to be self-sufficient.

Women from the public, private and third sectors contributed to the report, with representatives from industries spanning across construction to social care, utilities to universities, and from fashion to finance coming together on the day.

Representatives from Liverpool Combined Authority were also there on the day, while The Women’s Organisation hosted and contributed to the event.

The One Day group has since been working collaboratively with the Combined Authority to take forward its recommendations, with many having already been addressed through new or existing initiatives.

Steve Rotheram, Metro Mayor of the Liverpool City Region, said: “I want our region to be the UK’s fairest and most inclusive local economy. To do that, we’ll be relying on our greatest natural resource: our people. But we will not be able to make that a reality unless we make the most of the talents of all our people.

“We’re already working with the One Day group to see how we can implement some of their recommendations and how we can make our existing programs and initiatives even better. I will stop at nothing to make our region the best in the world.

“I’ve always said that diversity is one of our great strengths and I want to harness it to unlock the full potential of our region.”

Cultural Economist Erika Rushton is convenor of the One Day group, which started when she posted a tweet to mark the Birthday of the Women’s Budget Group, which has been publishing national and global evidence of the compelling advantages of gender equality, for everyone, for the last 30 years.

Speaking about ‘One Day’, she said: “I was staggered by the huge response we received from diverse women from right across the Liverpool City Region and all that we were able to achieve in just one day.

“We welcome the changes the Metro Mayor has made so far to ensure that diverse women are in every room and at every table where decisions are being made. Our hope is that he will continue this important work with Council leaders across the region to deliver a gender balanced cabinet one day soon.

“We also want to pay particular credit to the forward looking private sector companies who are now leading the way in gender equality; proactively closing the gender pay gap and requiring that those they invest in and buy from must have at least 30% women on their boards and leadership teams. Credit must, of course, also go to the rapidly increasing numbers of women who are rejecting glass ceilings to step out and set up their own businesses, contributing to the 60% of UK new growth that already comes from women. The evidence shows us that this growth has the potential to grow to 80% when gender balance is supported through policy or law. We now want to work with the Mayor and regional leaders to put that framework in place so women can reach their full potential."

Maggie O’Carroll, CEO of The Women’s Organisation, which hosted and contributed to the report, said: “There is immense opportunity here to grow the Liverpool City Region’s economy through ensuring that women are included in all parts of economic life.

“Women’s inclusion in business start-up and in social enterprise growth and development is a definite way of achieving the ambition of inclusive growth. It is so important that this is recognised and harnessed as a key economic driver”.

Maggie O'Carroll, CEO of The Women's Organisation

The launch will be taking place this Friday 6th March, 8am – 9.30am in Siren Liverpool at The Women’s Organisation.