The name is Bond, Jane Bond . . .

When New Zealand’s spies had their last pay review, it became clear to hierarchy that some were getting short-changed for their service.

So the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) moved to bump up the pay of a small handful of women who, for no other discernible reason, were getting paid less than their male counterparts.

New Zealand’s external spy agency is on a mission for gender diversity and equality, and has set a target to reduce its gender pay gap to 5 per cent. It’s already halved over the past five years to 8 per cent, and sits below the state sector average of 9.4 per cent.

But it was a problem the bureau could only improve so much, unless more women were recruited into cyber security at the government level.

With recent global cyber security threats like WannaCry and ongoing terrorist threats, the GCSB needed the best minds early and it needed to be as transparent as it could be about the threats that existed and how it responded to those, Director General Andrew Hampton said.

It was legally and ethically right to ensure people were being paid fairly.

‘‘But there’s an equally compelling business case about why it makes sense to have a workforce that better reflects the society that you serve.

‘‘And we want to make sure that we’re not excluding or discounting big chunks of the population – whether they be female or people from ethnic minorities. As long as they’ve got those technical skills,’’ Hampton said.

In contrast to the internally-focused Security Intelligence Service, the GCSB’s basic mission was to gather foreign intelligence by electronic means.

Although more than 50 per cent of its staff were female at the senior leadership level, women represented only 36 per cent of staff overall. Technical roles were particularly under-represented.

He was mindful that an organisation full of ‘‘white males’’ was at risk of ‘‘group think’’, but the representation problem began at university. So the GCSB was also taking on a national responsibility to recruit more women into what’s known as university STEM subjects - science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

At university level, only 26 per cent of

"We want to make sure that we're not excluding or discounting big chunks of the population."

Director General Andrew Hampton

computer science students were female, and 13 per cent were doing engineering.

‘‘We want, not just for ourselves but for the good of the country, for women to be thinking about what a career would look like in one of those technical roles early on, so they make subject choices that take them in that direction.’’

Hampton has announced the four female students who are the first winners of a major scholarship for the GCSB to pay for part of their studies. From a significant pool of applicants Amber Joseph (Victoria University), Kiri Lenagh Glue (Otago), Jessica Robertson (Canterbury), and Georgia Gadsby (Auckland University) will receive $10,000 each and were under no obligation to work for the GCSB later.

Competing with tech giants like Google and Facebook in recruiting the country’s best meant it was incumbent on the bureau to ensure it was an employer New Zealand’s best and brightest wanted to work for.

Reviews on pay and diversity were under way. ‘‘You’ve got to get beyond admiring the problem. You’ve actually got to start doing stuff.’’