The Gender Pay Gap is the difference in pay between all males and all females in any organisation. The point of gender pay gap reporting is not to check that women are paid equally to men for the same job or work of equal value (this is protected by Equal Pay legislation). It is about whether there are differences in the sorts of jobs done by men and women which result in men generally being paid more than women. So if an organisation has a gender pay gap, it doesn't mean that men and women in comparable roles are paid differently. It means that the workforce includes proportionally more men paid at higher hourly rates than women.
By law we are required to report six sets of figures which measure our gender pay gap:
- Difference in mean hourly rate of pay
- Difference in median hourly rate of pay
- Difference in mean bonus pay
- Difference in median bonus pay
- The proportion of male and female employees who were paid bonus pay
- The proportion of male and female employees within each pay band, based on four quartiles.
The report below details each of the above six sets of figures for 2019, and for reference we have also included the figures previously reported in both 2017 and 2018.
Firstly, the difference in hourly rate between men and women is calculated, based on pay rates as of the "snapshot date" of 31 March 2019. Mean gender pay gap compares the average hourly rates of men to those of women. Median gender pay gap is calculated by placing all hourly rates in order from lowest to highest and comparing the middle rate for men with the middle rate for women. The median figure is often seen as more accurate, because it is not skewed by extremes at the highest or at the lowest ends of the scale
Our Mean Gender Pay Gap in 2019 is 1.8 per cent, compared to 3.4 per cent in 2018 and 1.9 per cent in 2017. Median Gender Pay Gap in 2019 is -5.9 per cent, compared to -3.2 per cent in 2018 and -2.1 per cent in 2017.
A minus figure ("negative pay gap") means women are paid more than men, by that measure. So our gender pay gap figures show that based on the mean measure, women earn 1.8 per cent less than men. In other words, on average for every £1 a man earns, a woman earns just over 98p. However, based on the median measure, women in our Council earn 5.9 per cent more than men. In other words, for every £1 a man earns, a woman earns almost £1.06.
Since 2017, our Median pay gap has widened further each year in favour of women. Given that our workforce is mostly female, this suggests a pattern of consistently appointing or promoting women into senior roles at the same rate as or more frequently than men. The Mean rate, which is more affected by small numbers of individuals at the highest (and lowest) rates of pay, has fluctuated over the three years since reporting began; but 2019 is our lowest Mean gender pay gap to date.
Secondly, we must calculate the difference in bonus pay between men and women, again based on the mean and also on the median. The only relevant bonus payment for this calculation is the one-off payment made under our Contribution Related Reward (CRR) Scheme for those employees rated as Exceeds Expectations (£450, pro-rata for part-time employees) or Outstanding (£1,000, pro-rata for part-time employees) as part of their individual appraisal process.
In 2020 we must report on bonuses paid in the year immediately prior to the "snapshot date" of 31 March 2019, so the bonus gap analysis is based on CRR payments made in June 2018.
Our Mean Gender Bonus Gap in 2019 is 5.8 per cent, compared to 9.4 per cent in 2018 and -0.7 per cent in 2017. Median Gender Pay Gap in 2019 is 0 per cent, and has been so each year since reporting began in 2017.
The gender bonus gap figures show that based on the mean measure, women earn 5.8 per cent less than men. In other words, on average for every £1 bonus a man earned, a woman earned just over 94p. Based on the median measure, there is no pay gap.
The Mean gender bonus gap is caused by the fact that many more of our female employees work part time compared to male employees, and so any bonus payment received by a woman is more likely to be adjusted to reflect their part time hours. If there were no mean gender bonus gap this would indicate that part time employees are significantly less likely than full time employees to achieve the Exceeds Expectations or Outstanding ratings at appraisal. This would in itself be intrinsically unfair, especially because, as stated above, part time employees are more likely to be female and full time employees more likely to be male.
The median bonus gap is 0 per cent because the payment amount paid most often is £450 - so when male and female bonus payments are put in a line from lowest to highest, this amount is always in the middle. This situation is likely to be the same every year, which explains why the median bonus gap is consistently zero since 2017.
Next, we have to show the proportion of men and women who received a bonus payment. For context, the overall percentage of employees receiving a bonus has also been provided.
The proportion of male employees who received a bonus in 2019 was 30.4 per cent, compared to 29.1 per cent of women and 29.5 per cent of all employees. In 2018, 23.4 per cent of men and 27.8 per cent of women received a bonus compared to 26.6 per cent of all employees; and in 2017, 22.5 per cent of men and 23 per cent of women received a bonus compared to 22.9 per cent of all employees.
Men are therefore very slightly more likely than women to have received a bonus payment in 2019. However the difference here is so small that it does not have any real statistical significance - mathematically it would be highly difficult, if not impossible, for these figures to match exactly.
Finally, we are required to divide the workforce into four equal groups ("quartiles") based on hourly rate from lowest to highest, and show the proportion of men and women in each quartile. Quartile analysis supports the mean and median pay gap calculations by showing if an organisation has a lack of women in senior roles. E.g. if an organisation has a 70 per cent female workforce but only 40 per cent of its Top Quartile are female, and 80 per cent of its Lower Quartile are female, they probably have a gender pay gap. And organisations with large gender pay gaps in favour of men tend to have higher proportions of women in the lower and lower middle pay quartiles than in the upper and upper middle pay quartiles.
In 2019, in total the Council was made up of 71.6 per cent women, 28.4 per cent men. The Lower Quartile (representing the lowest paid) mirrored these percentages. The Lower Middle Quartile contained 69.3 per cent women compared to 30.7 per cent men. The Upper Middle Quartile contained 75.3 per cent women compared to 24.7 per cent men. And the Top Quartile representing the highest paid, contained 70.3 per cent women compared to 29.7 per cent men.
The proportion of women in each of our four quartiles is therefore similar to each other and to the overall proportion of women. Since 2017 the Upper Middle Quartile has consistently contained the highest proportion of women across all four Quartiles. 2019 sees the highest proportion of women to date in the Top Quartile.
The quartiles are based on an equal split of the workforce into four groups, but the majority of our staff are at lower grades so the upper quartile actually covers a wide range and by no means just the most senior or highly-paid roles.
Gender pay gap reporting is not a solution in itself; but is just one of a number of measures we can use to assess how good we are at promoting equality and diversity.
Our gender pay gap figures compare favourably with the wider sector and the economy as a whole. We believe this shows that as a Council we take this issue seriously and have successfully taken steps to prevent gender pay inequalities in the workforce, such as:
- Providing development and promotion opportunities internally, to support all employees in reaching their full potential
- Adopting effective recruitment practices to ensure that we always appoint the best person for the job, and do not proportionally disadvantage either male or female applicants
- Offering part time working in a wide variety of roles, which have been taken up by a significant proportion of the workforce
- Offering family friendly benefits including childcare vouchers and holiday purchase
- Introducing and supporting mobile and flexible working at all levels, which promotes a healthy work/life balance and supports employees with caring responsibilities
- Our commitment to paying a local living wage for all employees, supporting those in the lowest graded jobs.
We will continue to develop and embed practices which encourage equality across the Council.