Defined entities have a responsibility to make progress on gender equality. Publicly reporting on progress and data ensures that defined entities are transparent and accountable to their employees and the communities they serve.
Publishing progress reports on your website
As a defined entity, you must publish your progress report on your organisation’s external website. We recommend you also publish the progress report on your organisation’s internal website.
The Commission will assess progress reports for compliance under the Act. You will be notified about the outcome of assessments, and advised of a timeframe for publishing, which we expect to be mid 2024.
If you publish your progress report before it is assessed as compliant and updates are required, you will need to update your published version. If you publish early, we suggest you include a disclaimer noting that:
- the progress report has not been checked for compliance by the Commissioner
- the progress report may be subject to changes.
You must remove any personal or potentially identifying information before publishing your progress report. This also applies to any supporting documents.
You are not required to publish your workplace gender audit data or employee experience data. You may instead wish to link to the Commission's public data insights portal. This is where 2021 and 2023 summary data for all defined entities is presented.
Format of progress reports on your website
You can choose to publish your progress reports in the following formats:
- in the progress report Excel template submitted to the Commission
- in an alternative designed or accessible format.
Publishing your progress report Excel template is the easiest way to ensure you have published all of the required content. Publishing your supporting documents is optional but strongly recommended.
Redesigning your progress report
You may choose to present your progress report in a designed or accessible format for your website. If you do choose to reformat your progress report, you must include all 'required' sections of the progress report for:
- gender impact assessments
- strategies and measures
- workplace gender equality indicators.
The Commission strongly encourages you to also include the 'recommended' sections.
The redesigned progress report can include summary information. You may also choose to produce a separate report that contains a summary of the full progress report. However, summary information should accompany the complete progress report. It must not replace the sections required to meet compliance under the Gender Equality Act(opens in a new window).
You may also choose to produce a separate report that contains a summary of the full progress report. This should accompany the complete progress report but cannot replace it.
What the Commission will publish
How the Commission will publish progress reports
Progress reports will be published in the Excel templates submitted by defined entities. The Commission will also publish any supporting documents authorised for publishing.
These documents will be accessible to the public on the public data insights portal(opens in a new window). They will be published in the 'plans and progress' section, under each organisation. This is also where the 2021 Gender Equality Action Plans and other supporting documents are published.
The Commission expects to publish progress reports around the middle of 2024.
How the Commission will publish audit data
The Commissioner will publish summary-level data from progress audits on the public data insights portal(opens in a new window). Data will be presented as visual reports.
Data from each organisation’s progress audit will be published after it is assessed as meeting the requirements under the Act.
Some data may not be suitable for publishing. In these cases, sections of the insights portal's report may display a message that suitable data was not supplied.
If you are a reporting platform user, you can preview how the Commission will publish your data. To do this, view the 'Public (preview)' report within the Reports section of the Gender Equality Act Reporting Platform(opens in a new window).
The Commission expects to publish audit data around the middle of 2024.
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