Andrew Lansley said women who have postnatal depression and women who have suffered a miscarriage, stillbirth or the death of a baby will get more support from the NHS. The Government has also pledged to improve maternity care by ensuring women have one named midwife to oversee their care from pregnancy to after the birth, ensuring every woman has one to one midwife care in labour and allowing parents to choose where and how they give birth.

The Government says health visitors and midwives will be supported to work together to provide expert joined up care for new parents, with a focus on emotional wellbeing. They will have access to the latest information on dealing with and identifying postnatal depression. Where extra help is needed, the Government says they will be able to refer women to counselling, backed by a £400 million investment in psychological and talking therapies.

For the first time, patients who have miscarried or suffered a stillbirth or cot death will be asked to rate their care.

The number of people in employment aged 16 and over increased by 105,000 betwen January and March, but fell by 7,000 on the year to reach 29.23 million. The number of part-time workers increased by 118,000 on the quarter to reach 7.99 million (the highest figure since comparable records began in 1992), but the number of full-time workers fell by 13,000 to reach 21.24 million. The number of people (excluding unpaid family workers and government supported trainees) who were working part-time because they could not find a full-time job increased by 73,000 on the quarter to reach 1.42 million, the highest figure since comparable records began in 1992. The number of self-employed people increased by 89,000 over the quarter to reach 4.16 million, the highest figure since comparable records began in 1992.

The unemployment rate for the three months to March 2012 was 8.2 per cent of the economically active population, down 0.2 on the quarter. However, the number of people unemployed for over one year increased by 27,000 to reach 887,000, the highest figure since the three months to September 1996.

The economic inactivity rate for women aged from 16 to 64 fell by 0.1 on the quarter to reach 29.0 per cent, the lowest figure since comparable records began in 1971. The female inactivity rate has generally been falling since comparable records for this series began in January-March 1971, when it was 44.5 per cent.

The figures also show that the number of people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) fell by 13,700 between March and April 2012, but increased by 106,600 on the year, to reach 1.59 million. This is the second consecutive monthly fall in this series and the largest fall since July 2010. The number of people claiming JSA for up to six months fell by 27,200 on the month and by 128,400 on the year to reach 858,800.

In terms of pay, the figures from January to March show total pay (including bonuses) rose by 0.6 per cent on a year earlier. The ONS says this is the lowest growth rate since March-May 2009 and it is down 0.5 on the three months to February 2012. Regular pay (excluding bonuses) rose by 1.6 per cent on a year earlier, unchanged on the three months to February 2012. 

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TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: "Today's figures are mixed, with the welcome fall in unemployment driven entirely by part-time jobs. The number of under-employed people, who are taking part-time and temporary jobs for a lack of permanent full-time work, has hit two million for the first time ever. The falling number of full-time jobs and six per cent fall in real wages over the last two years means that people are having to make huge salary sacrifices and put their careers on hold just to stay in work.

"People's incomes and job security today are barely any better than they were at the height of the financial crash. Unless governments act together and stop our austerity misery spiral, the UK's economic depression will continue for far longer than feared."

Dr John Philpott, Chief Economic Adviser at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, said: "These are odd figures best explained by a surge in part-time odd jobbing. A sharp quarterly rise of over 100,000 in the number of people in work combined with another welcome fall in joblessness is remarkable for an economy that dipped back into recession at the start of the year. Such an outcome would normally be a sign of economic recovery. However, while optimists might conclude that this casts doubt on the reliability of the most recent official GDP growth figures, a more sober assessment is that a very weak economy is managing to keep unemployment in check only by maintaining a severe squeeze on the size of pay packets and creating enough low productivity work to allow people to avoid the dole by doing the odd part-time job here and there, either as employees or on a casual self-employed basis.

"While a weak double dip labour market might be able to sustain enough odd jobbing to prevent unemployment hitting the 3 million mark, the combination of a growing army of underemployed odd jobbers, 2.63 million people unemployed and pay rises still lagging well behind price inflation suggests that the underlying employment situation is worse than at any point in at least the past two decades."

It has been set up in direct response to a national survey conducted by both organisations which revealed a record 13.4% of senior employees think employers are out of touch with working mums and plan to quit the industry in the next two years if employers continue to deny flexible provisions for those wishing to return from maternity leave and maintain negative attitudes.

The survey, which interviewed 550 women and men working within communications, revealed:

- 9.4% of employers felt they had serious reservations about hiring women aged between 30-40 years old fearing they would, at some point, fall pregnant
- 62% of employees feel that they will be discriminated against if they were to become pregnant
- 49.3% of respondents have observed issues or problems among colleagues directly related to their return from maternity leave, such as difficulty with flexible working hours (64.6%), reduction in perceived status (59.9%) and negotiating part-time employment (53.2%).

The survey further suggests women and, in particular, those in senior positions are considering seeking employment elsewhere if this issue is not addressed fairly.

Such anxiety is having a devastating effect on confidence levels among those returning from maternity leave, says Hanson. Some 48.2% of respondents reported lack of self belief in their ability to do their job as effectively as before. This is worsened by a fear of being undermined by their peers (78.4%) once they return.

From an employer’s perspective, fear of losing a valuable resource (57.5%), stability (49.7%), staffing upheaval (35.3%) and the challenge to fill the recruitment gap (51.1%) were among the long-term concerns from industry bosses regarding the direct impact on the business if a senior female employee considered maternity leave.

Some 80% of interviewees believe that flexible working is beneficial to both the employer and employee in terms of time management and time efficiency, with 83.8% suggesting it would be good practice for organisations to implement such strategies.

The survey insights and subsequently the findings from a strategy discussion comprising of senior industry heads, have resulted in a formulated code of best practice to include:

-  Creating the Right Company Culture - the idea is that it is the responsibility of employers to create an open and honest environment to encourage two-way flow discussion, which realistically allows the employee to articulate their future plans before returning back to work
- Taking Responsibility - it is considered imperative that middle to senior management employees who become pregnant inform their employers sooner rather than later to enable an effective transition process
- Devising a Maternity Comeback Framework -  it is considered to be crucial that employees take responsibility for their own ‘outputs’ and effectively and successfully manage their employer’s expectations to everyone’s mutual benefit
- Reappraising the Legal Situation - employees are entitled to certain family rights. The problem, says Hanson, is that many people automatically assume that there are legal pitfalls and issues when there might not be.

Alice Weightman, MD of Hanson Search, says: “To help drive positive organisational change, it is critical that momentum continues – not only in helping retain top talent within the workplace but ultimately reducing the gender diversity gap among senior women returning from maternity leave. In doing so, it is imperative that we aim to encourage wider reaching networks and partnerships across like-minded organisations to share experiences/best practices and this will form the context of the Gender Balance Task Force, a central hub/collaborative of key stakeholders which provides a crucial resource/support for both employers and employees alike seeking workable advice and guidance.”

Jane Wilson, CEO of the CIPR, says: “Both employees and employers must be able to have honest and open conversations about how the requirements of the business can be balanced against the needs of the employee. In a 24/7 world of social media, rolling news and increasing disclosure, this probably matters more to our industry than most other professions. I’m confident that this joint piece of work will help provide a much needed framework for dialogue between employers and returning female employees.”

It shows that 131 million days were lost due to sickness absences in the UK in 2011 - with an average of 4.5 days taken off a year, down from 178 million days in 1993.

The number of days lost through sickness absences remained constant through the 1990s until 2003 and has fallen since then, says the ONS. Over the same period, the percentage of people having a spell of sickness and hence the percentage of working hours lost has been falling. The reason the number of days lost remained constant between 1993 and 2003, when the percentage of hours lost were falling over this period, was because there were more people entering employment during this time.

The most common reason given for sickness in 2011 was minor illnesses such as coughs, colds and flu. This type of illness tends to have short durations and the greatest number of days lost were actually due to musculoskeletal problems. This accounted for just over a quarter of all days lost or 34.4 million days. Around 27.5 million days were lost due to minor illnesses and 13.1 million days were lost to stress, depression and anxiety.

Women have consistently higher sickness absence rates than men but both sexes have seen a fall over the past 20 years, says the ONS. Men have gone from losing around 2.5 per cent of their hours due to sickness in 1993 to around 1.5 per cent in 2011. Over the same period women have seen a reduction from 3.3 per cent to 2.3 per cent.

The percentage of hours lost to sickness in the private sector is lower than in the public sector, 1.6 per cent and 2.6 per cent respectively, due in part to the higher number of women in the public sector, says the ONS.

Self-employed people, at 1.2 per cent of working hours lost, took less sickness than employees in 2011.

Workers in organisations with more than 500 employees had the highest percentage of working hours lost in 2011, at 2.3 per cent. Those working in firms sized 25 to 49 and 50 to 499 lost a similar percentage of hours (2.1 and 2.0 per cent respectively) and the smallest firms had the lowest percentage of hours lost at 1.5 per cent.

Workers in London had the lowest percentage of hours lost to sickness, at 1.3 per cent. The highest percentage lost was in the North East and Wales, both at 2.5 per cent.

Commenting on the figures, TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: "Workers are taking less time off sick than ever. The biggest problem workplaces face is not absenteeism but 'presenteeism' where workers come in when they are too ill.

"Presenteeism can multiply problems by making someone ill for longer and spreading germs around the workplace.

"Today's figures also show that the biggest causes of long term sickness absence are musculoskeletal disorders and stress. Both of these are often as a result of a person's work.

"Employers need to look at their working practices and see whether they can be changed to prevent ill-health, rather than try to blame workers for falling sick, which serves no good to anyone."

The CIPD/Benefex Reward Management Survey 2012 found that more than a third of companies plan to increase their spend on employee benefits this year, but few (17.8 per cent) provide "total reward statements" and 8 in 10 offer no financial education to help employees understand the value of their pensions and other financial benefits. What's more, the survey revealed that the majority of organisations have not adopted a transparent approach to communicating information about pay scales, the provision of benefits and allowances, grading systems, job evaluation, performance-related pay schemes and how pay decisions are made for different individuals or groups of employees.

Charles Cotton, rewards adviser at the CIPD, says: "In order to attract and retain the brightest and greatest talent, the best employers offer attractive benefits packages to enhance base salaries. However, if employees don't understand or value what they are getting, these employers are not likely to reap the competitive advantage they are seeking and other organisations will have no incentive to match them.

"If rewards are used to motivate employees, or to encourage higher performance, then being reticent about reward communication does not make sense. Employers shouldn't take it for granted that potential candidates and existing staff appreciate or understand the value of the pension scheme or perks such as subsidised meals, life assurance and critical illness insurance. Many employees will not look beyond their base salary and how far they can make it stretch from month to month. As we embark upon the biggest shake up to pensions since the state pension was created, employers will have a duty to communicate with employees about these changes and how they could benefit from saving for their retirement. What's more, if employers apply that duty of care to their entire reward strategy, by improving employee understanding and awareness around the value of the entire breadth of benefits they offer, employers are likely to reap the benefits in terms of recruitment, retention, engagement and productivity."

Matt Waller, CEO at Benefex, adds: "In the current economic climate employers will need to think outside of the box to create effective opportunities for engaging and communicating with their employees. With more businesses than ever looking at the implementation of retention and attraction strategies, it is key for employers to re-enforce the value that they place on their employees. It is therefore paramount to regularly communicate the full range of rewards and benefits available over and above basic pay and holiday entitlement. Total reward statements can be used as a simple, but cost effective engagement tool in support of these strategies.

"With auto-enrolment looming ever closer it can provide employers with an opportunity to create a significant level of increased engagement maximise the tools available and turn the complex into the compelling."

Other findings from the survey include:
- Around nine in ten organisations contribute to an employee pension scheme
- Four in ten organisations plan to make changes to their pension schemes this year, but nearly eight in ten offer no financial education to their employees and only 3.8% plan to introduce it this year.
- Financial education is most common in the public sector
- The most common universally provided benefits are:
   Paid leave in excess of statutory entitlement (25 days, excluding public holidays) - 65.2%
  Training and career development - 65.2%
  Child care vouchers - 62.7%
- The most common benefits restricted to certain grades or levels of seniority include:
  Car allowance - 61.8%
  Company car - 53.8%
  Private medical insurance - 40.2%.
- The most common benefits offered as part of a flexible benefits package include:
  Dental insurance - 45.5
  Cycle to work scheme loan - 43.6
  Childcare vouchers - 41.8
  Health screening - 38.2

The review of the public sector equalities duty is part of the Government's Red Tape Challenge. A written ministerial statement from the Home Office states that the EHRC budget is being comprehensively reviewed, a new chairman being sought and tighter controls being implemented. Of its plans to review and scale back the public sector equality duty, it says it wants to reduce "unnecessary bureaucracy".

It says: "A proportionate approach to legislation goes hand in hand with our plans for the EHRC. We want the EHRC to become a valued and respected national institution. To do so, we believe it must focus on the areas where it can add value – as an independent equality body and 'A - rated' national human rights institution. And, it must be able to show that it is using taxpayers' money wisely.

"We have decided to scrap vague, unnecessary and obsolete provisions from the Equality Act 2006 to focus the EHRC on its core functions."

Ceri Goddard, Fawcett's Chief Executive, said: "We are disappointed to learn that the government proposes to review the effectiveness of the public sector Equality Duty so soon – it came into force little more than a year ago, reviewing it at this stage is unlikely to lead to meaningful conclusions. Moreover, it could prove unsettling for public bodies when they are under pressure to become more efficient. 

“The duty requires that all public bodies - government departments, councils and other agencies -  consider the impact of their decisions on women and other groups - and take steps to eliminate discrimination and advance equality in their work. “It fosters good decision making – be it in shaping policy or delivering services – and has been an important tool in allowing the general public to hold public bodies to account. 

“Going forward, we are concerned that important equalities legislation is not seen as simply burdensome red tape – rather government should see it as a tool to help them deliver on their stated aims of fairness and transparency, especially in times of austerity."
  
 TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: "Today's announcement is bad news for people facing discrimination and mistreatment as they will have fewer places to turn to for support.

"Outsourcing the EHRC helpline will mean the loss of specialist support for the thousands of people who call in every month.

"And just a day after the EHRC investigation showed that the public sector equality duty is helping to build the evidence needed for sound policies, ministers are looking to run it down.

"These cuts will mean more bad policy making which will further alienate those who are already bearing the brunt of the Government's austerity programme."

Other results reveal that - given an hour - 98% would place equal importance in making the boss tea as spending time building their network or finessing their CV.

Other than the marketing profession, politicians were deemed to be the most effective networkers (18%), followed by stockbrokers (11%) and journalists (10%).

Also revealed was a gender divide - more men think the sexes are equally developing their careers, yet women are more likely to think than men spend more time developing their careers (50% women vs. 29% men) with 37% of the population think that men are better than women at networking, versus 24% believing women were better.

LinkedIn says branding expert William Arruda says only nine minutes a day is necessary to progress your career through online networking.

The Commission's report considers the extent to which the decision-making by ministers and Treasury officials met legal obligations to consider the impact on equality when completing the Spending Review. It is the first time an assessment of this kind and scale has been undertaken and the EHRC says the UK is unique in having a public sector equality duty and adds that it is only a recent innovation, under the 2010 Equality Act.

The report commends Ministers and officials for "serious" efforts to meet the requirements of their obligations. It looked at nine particular cases and found that in six the Treasury acted in accordance with the requirements under the equality duties: - Removing Child Benefit from households with a higher rate taxpayer
- Reform of Legal Aid
- A £2.5 billion pupil premium for disadvantaged children
- Removal of mobility component of Disability Living Allowance from claimants in residential care homes
- 10 per cent reduction in Council Tax Benefit expenditure, and localisation
- Time-limiting the contributory Employment and Support Allowance to one year for those in the Work Related Activity Group

However, in three cases, the Commission says that it was unable to establish whether or not the decisions were in full accord with the requirements of the duty because of a lack of clarity as to a) where the true site of the decisions lay and b) whether or not some decisions were the responsibility of other government departments or the government as a whole.

These cases are: - Introduction of a household benefits cap. There was no evidence of any gender analysis or equality screening of the measure provided to HM Treasury ministers prior to the announcement of the measure.
- Bus Service Operators Grant (BSOG). The potential impact on people with disabilities was not included in the advice provided to HM Treasury ministers.
- Replacing Education Maintenance Allowance with local discretionary funds. There was no reference to ethnicity, disability or gender in information provided to HM Treasury ministers.

The Commission says it believes that it would be disproportionate to take further formal action in these three specific decisions. Its report, however, calls for greater transparency in future reviews, including the development of a common model of analysis to predict the likely equality effects of policy  and  earlier use of the equality duties to ensure better targeting of funds and greater value for money.

Trevor Phillips, Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission said: "This has been an unprecedented exercise by the Commission. We were helped immensely by the openness of Ministers in particular the Chief Secretary, who gave evidence, and the Chancellor. We believe that our recommendations will go a long way to making sure that all parts of government are better able to meet their legal obligations, and more importantly to make decisions which are fairer, and seen to be fairer.

"The key point for the Commission's work is not to judge the past, but to transform the future. I am particularly pleased that the government has indicated that it will work with us over the next few years to make sure that the equality impact of policy is fully understood and taken into account before decisions are made. That we think will lead to more targeted spending, more effective use of public money, and above all greater fairness all round."