THE council is set to celebrate women in senior leadership roles this International Women’s Day.

The three most senior elected positions in BCP Council are held by women – leader, deputy leader and chairman.

The three mayors for Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole are also female, as well as three out of four chairs of the parish councils.

Fifty-five per cent of the chairs of committees and 70 per cent of the senior management team are also female.

Council leader, Vikki Slade, will celebrate the achievements of women at the local authority and in the community at an event this Friday, March 8.

Cllr Slade will call on local business leaders to sign up to a new council-run informal mentoring scheme, to support and encourage women returning to work after a career break.

She said there was cause to celebrate progress made, although the authority had not yet achieved total gender balance.

She said: “Gender parity is vital to a fair democracy – women are more likely to rely on the services that councils run, from childcare to education to social housing – so their voice must be heard to ensure services help the users.

“That’s why we’re launching a mentoring scheme to help coach women in our community to success when they return to work from a break in their career, whether because of caring responsibilities or other reasons, and I’d like to ask business and organisational leaders here today to pledge their involvement.

“But while improvements have been made towards fairer gender parity at BCP Council, we still have some way to go until we achieve diversity in other ways, and we are working on doing better."

Cllr Slade also wants to encourage more women into local politics.

She said: “I think being an advocate for others is the most powerful thing we can do in politics.

“Once you've done that once, you’ll want to again and again. That's why I do politics.”