Nicola Sturgeon has challenged the First Minister to appoint even more women to senior government posts following the confirmation of two more female cabinet secretaries.
Angela Constance and Shona Robison have been officially promoted to the Scottish Government top table, boosting female representation on the Scottish Cabinet to 40%.
But Ms Sturgeon, Deputy First Minister and deputy leader of the SNP, has challenged First Minister Alex Salmond to match the Scottish female population share of 52%. The appointments were approved at Holyrood yesterday, but opposition parties complained they were politically motivated with no additional duties and a public price of more than £30,000 in salaries.
Ms Sturgeon said: "These appointments do mean that 40% of the Cabinet are women.
"That is a significant milestone and one we should be proud of. Although I should perhaps say, First Minister, given that we make up 52% of the population perhaps it's not time to stop quite where we are right now."
Labour equalities spokeswoman Jackie Baillie said: "This is perhaps not about recognising talent — it is quite simply about the referendum. Apparently the First Minister has a problem with women. Or is it that women have a problem with Alex Salmond?
"I'm sure it comes as a surprise to him, but it would appear that women don't altogether trust the First Minister and his promises."
She added: "The First Minister has today increased the salary of two women by something like £30,000 to £40,000 a year, and that is welcome.
"But there is a marginal impact on the equal pay gap by doing that. How about increasing the wages of 256,000 working women to pay the Living Wage?"
Conservative deputy leader Jackson Carlaw said: "The appointments without supporting ministers or additional duties are being funded at taxpayers' expense. How much better these appointments would have been had they been given the chance to perform better than failing ministers in the Scottish Government."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article