Queen Elizabeth held a party for female civil servants at Buckingham Palace on Tuesday (21.02.17)
Queen Elizabeth
The 90-year-old royal welcomed past and present female permanent secretaries at the Queen's Gallery in Buckingham Palace, in celebration of diversity within the civil service.
Queen Elizabeth met with the ten female permanent secretaries, who come from a total of 39 senior civil servants who hold the position, which involves heading the day-to-day running of a central government department and acting as an adviser to the relevant secretary of state.
One woman, Antonia Romeo - who is set to take up the role as permanent secretary for the Department of International Trade in March - believes the increase of female civil servants comes as a response to being able to have flexible working hours.
She said at the event: "I joined the Civil Service in 2000 and at the time there was much less opportunity to do things like job sharing, which meant that if you wanted to do the really tough jobs, you had to work full time unless you had a particularly understanding boss.
"I was lucky because I worked with some supportive and very understanding diversity-friendly bosses early in my career when I was having children.
"If you look around now, you see loads of really powerful people in job shares, loads of really effective women at senior levels in job shares."
Meanwhile, the head of the Civil Service, Sir Jeremy Heywood, has said the service aims to become "the most inclusive employer in the UK".
He said: "Currently, over 40% of the Senior Civil Service are women. But there is still more to do, which is why we are determined to build on our progress to date by removing any remaining barriers for women and other under-represented groups in the Civil Service."
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