Gender pay gap data 2020

2021

Published in

2021

Last reviewed in

Gender Pay Gap Data as at 31st March 2020

The Government requires all employers with over 250 employees to report their gender pay gap on an annual basis. This is the 4th year in which these figures have been published.

Our vision is to be an outstanding place to live, invest and bring up families. At the heart of our approach is fair treatment and equal opportunity. Approximately 70% of the Council’s employees currently live in the Borough and we are committed to improving the gender pay gap within our organisation.

The gender pay gap data highlights the difference between the average pay of men and women; it is not a measure of equal pay, which relates to what men and women are paid for the same or similar roles or work of equal value.

The Council collected data on 31st March 2020 at which time our workforce consisted of 2776 full pay relevant employees, 784 men and 1992 women (28% / 72% respectively). This data does not include school-based employees.

The figures in the table below show that the Council has a mean gender pay gap of 16.24% which is the difference between average hourly rate of pay of male and female full pay relevant employees. This has decreased from 16.74% in March 2019. The median gender pay gap is the difference between the median hour rate of male and female full pay relevant employees and is 17.96%, this is a slight increase from 17.58% in March 2019.

In March 2019 the mean hourly rate for men was £15.41 which increased to £15.70 in March 2020, an increase of 1.9%. The mean hourly rate for women increased from £12.83 to £13.15 over the same period which is an increase of 2.5% and this has contributed to the decrease in the mean gender pay gap. The decrease is in the main due to the NJC national pay award in April 2019. The national pay award saw larger percentage rises to the pay points at the bottom of the pay spine. As there are more women than men paid in roles at the lower end of the pay spine this has resulted in a greater increase in the hourly rate.

The annual survey of hours and earnings (ASHE) gender pay gap tables released by the Office of National Statistics Great Britain in November 2019 shows an average mean gender pay gap across all employers in the Public Sector of 15.7% and a median gender pay gap of 16.8% therefore the Council figures are slightly higher than the national average.

The Council does not pay bonus payments and therefore does not have a gender pay gap in this area.

The proportion of men and women in each pay quartile is shown below. 56% of the total number of women (1121 employees) are in the lower and lower middle quartiles compared to 34% (267 employees) of men. 44% of women (871 employees) are in the upper middle and upper quartiles compared with 66% (517 employees) of men.

Proportion of men and women in each pay quartile (%)

The average hourly rate per quartile is shown in the table below.

The Council has a higher proportion of part time employees, 1332 employees (48%) are full time and 1444 employees (52%) are part time. The numbers of full time and part time staff in each quartile are shown in the table below.

The Council is committed to having flexible working policies which provide the opportunity for all employees to effectively balance home and work life priorities. However the figures show that, per quartile, the numbers of part time employees are in the lower and lower middle quartiles and women at those levels form the majority of part time workers.

Recognising the challenges

The Council is responsible for delivering a number of diverse services in areas such as Adult Social Care, Children and Young People’s Services, ICT, Finance, Legal Services, Regeneration, Leisure Services etc. Roles within these areas are very different in terms of requirements and hours of work and certain roles have, historically seen a gender bias. Roles in areas such as Refuse Collection, ICT and Construction Services have tended to attract more men, whereas roles in areas such as Social Care, Customer Services, Catering and Cleaning have tended to attract more women especially in areas where a high proportion of roles are part time.

Progress towards closing the gap

The Council is committed to reducing the pay gap and prioritised key areas for action. We recognise that providing flexible working arrangements enables all employees to effectively balance home and work life priorities and we have a number of flexible working policies and arrangements in place which are continuously reviewed. 60% of our female employees and 31% of our male employees work less than full time hours which includes, job share, part time, term time only etc so we are confident our flexible working arrangements are attractive to all employees but we need to ensure that men are equally encouraged to utilise these policies when they may wish too.

The Council is satisfied that our recruitment processes are fair and transparent and free from gender bias. We deliver Recruitment and Selection training to our managers which includes information on all areas of discrimination, genuine occupational requirements and fair selection methods. We continue to ensure our adverts have a gender-neutral language and vacancies are advertised through a number of channels to attract a broad range of applicants.

We have reviewed our succession planning and talent development opportunities. We are continuing to identify opportunities for development across all employees, utilising opportunities via the apprenticeship levy to implement career pathways across services. We are currently delivering a Leadership Development Programme, identifying our key talent for succession progression and providing bespoke development to this group. We ensured that access to this programme was flexible to ensure employees across all services and working arrangements were able to be considered.

We are also using the Apprentice Levy to deliver a Management Development Programme. The Level 3 Team Leader/ Supervisor Apprenticeship is aimed at supervisory or first line managers and will give practical knowledge and skills from team leading through to project and resource management. We have a higher proportion of female employees at this level and they will be able to access this training to develop their skills and help with career progression in their first supervisory roles. The Level 5 Operations/Departmental Manager Apprenticeship is aimed at managers responsible for creating and delivering operational plans, managing projects and leading and managing teams, to managing change, financial and resource management, coaching and mentoring. Access to both of these development opportunities has been widely circulated and open to all employees.