Speaking at the Employee Engagement Summit, Jo Swinson acknowledged that government must lead by example and support part time working, and added that this is not happening in certain areas.
Swinson said: “Government has got a really important leadership role and I think there is still more to be done – particularly, I would say, around part time working.
“I think there is still a slight snobbishness about people who work part time in senior roles. I’m not saying that that’s the case in government specifically but I think generally there is too much of that.”
Though some departments are approaching varied working patterns positively, Swinson said, there is inconsistency across departments: “My experience is that there are some really good examples of best practice in the civil service but they do vary from department to department.
“At BIS for example, I know things like flexible working and part time working in quite senior positions is actually quite common and we have job shares at deputy director level.
“I’m not sure that’s quite the same in all of the other departments.”