Gender Pay Gap Report - March 2022

South Tyneside Homes manages estates and Council housing stock on behalf of South Tyneside Council. To do this effectively, we have agreed values and objectives with our partners and customers. Our vision is to provide excellent services and quality homes where customers feel safe and supported.

We have committed to making sure that everyone is given a fair chance to access our services and employment opportunities. Our aim is to be an employer of choice, to treat all people fairly and ensure our employees understand and practice our commitment to equality and diversity.

Our People Strategy 2022-25, states the Vision for our people strategy is “to have a motivated, well-trained and diverse workforce that can meet the needs of the business, both now and in the future".

To support our overall strategic objective becoming an “Employer of Choice” the strategy is underpinned by having four objectives, as outlined below.

• To develop a pro-active approach to engage and ensure the wellbeing of our staff.
• To develop a modern and efficient approach to recruit and retain high quality, diverse staff.
• Ensure staff skilled and knowledgeable to meet current and future challenges.
• Develop our workforce plan to meet the future needs of the business through training and career development opportunities.

We want our staff to be engaged and empowered at work, and to promote a proactive and supportive culture that fosters an inclusive working environment and allows a creative and collaborative workforce that affirms South Tyneside Homes is a great place to work. The Strategy will sit alongside the equality, diversity (EDI) and inclusion framework to ensure it is a fundamental part of “how we do things” at South Tyneside Homes.

You can read further information within the EDI Strategy and EDI Policy.

The Government requires all employers with over 250 employees to report their gender pay gap on an annual basis. The gender pay gap data highlights the difference between the average pay of men and women; it is not a measure equal pay, which relates to what men and women are paid for the same or similar roles or work of equal value. The Company is an equal pay employer. Our pay structure is subject to transparent and robust job evaluation processes using the recommended Gauge System.

South Tyneside Homes collected data on 5th April 2022 at which time our workforce (full pay relevant employees) consisted of 431 men and 177 women (71% / 29% respectively).

The figures stated were captured on 5th April 2022, before the pending pay award was confirmed in late 2022. Full time relevant employees are defined as employees who have been paid their full usual pay during the pay period (April 2021). Any employees who have received reduced pay or no pay during this period, for example those on half sick pay or reduced maternity pay must be excluded from the calculations.

The figures in the table below show that the Company has a mean gender pay gap of 4.4% which is the difference between the mean (average) hourly rate of pay of male and female full pay relevant employees. This is an increase from 4.34% in April 2021 but 1.14% decrease from April 2017 when the figures were first reported. The median gender pay gap is the difference between the median hourly rate of male and female full pay relevant employees and is 0% which is the same as in April 2021 The annual survey of hours and earnings (ASHE) gender pay gap tables released by the Office of National Statistics Great Britain in November 2021 shows an average mean gender pay gap across all employers in the Public Sector of 14.8% and a median gender pay gap of 18% therefore the Company remains well below the national average.

The Company does not pay bonus payments and therefore does not have a gender pay gap to report.

Female employees are slightly over-represented in the Lower Middle and Upper Middle quartiles and underrepresented in the Upper quartile. This shows that male employees make up the higher percentage in the upper pay bands, with 80% of the highest paid staff being male.

The median hourly rate for both men and women is £14.16 and the average hourly rate per quartile is shown in the table below:

The Company has a small proportion of part time employees. 567 employees (93%) are full time and 42 employees (7%) are part time. Of the 42 part time staff, only 7 of these are male. The numbers of full time and part time staff in each quartile are shown in the table below:

In 2021/2022 the following progress was made around equality, diversity inclusion and the Gender Pay Gap:

• Rolled out Equality, Diversity and Inclusion training for over 200 staff which includes a focus on unconscious bias and will continue in 2022/23.
• Celebrated diversity, such as holding a coffee morning for International Women’s Day, where female staff had the opportunity to hear the experiences of several high-profile females from the North East. The event included a clothing donation to SmartWorks Newcastle. SmartWorks is a charity who provide local disadvantaged women with a new professional outfit and coaching ahead of job interviews.
• Reviewed our recruitment processes, resulting in applicants no longer being asked about their previous salary in line with best practice for equal pay.
• Piloted a hybrid working trial to inform a Hybrid Working Policy.
• Developed our new People Strategy that is aligned to the EDI Strategy.
• Increased the focus within the Corporate Business Team on equality, diversity and inclusion to support the organisation to embed EDI within the organisation.
• Surveyed all staff and held consultation groups across all levels to inform our EDI priorities.
• Commissioned a management consultancy firm to conduct an independent audit of STH’s approach to equality, diversity and inclusion in 2021. As part of the independent audit, staff at all levels of the company were interviewed and a recommendations report was presented at Board. The actions arising from this work have been incorporated into the new EDI Strategy which was approved March 2022.
• Developed a revised EDI Policy which was approved by Board in March 2022.
• There is an underrepresentation of female employees amongst our trade teams. We pro-actively encourage women to consider this area of work as a career option. An example of how we do this is through social media. See this link about ‘Introduce a girl to engineering day’. Also see this video about our apprentice recruitment.
• We have established a Social Enterprise offering traineeships to local people using our unique housing environment to create training and employment opportunities outside of our core business. Our programme delivers external contracts and offers a chargeable garden tidy service to all residents in South Tyneside allowing the Enterprise to be self-funded and contribute towards the organisation’s strategic goals. This year we led 13 people were trained, upskilled and employed through our Social Enterprise.

The Company is committed to taking action to reduce the gender pay gap however we recognise that we need to continue to take action and monitor our data as outlined below:

• Develop a Hybrid Working Policy - q1 22/23
• Actively promote the government childcare scheme to support staff to meet the costs of childcare - q2 22/23
• Appoint both an executive and Board sponsor for EDI – q2 22/23
• Develop procedures for collecting, updating and using workforce profiles and to consider ‘positive action measures’ for attracting and retaining diverse staff - q3 22/23
• Establish EDI Inclusion Group chaired by executive level manager – q4 22/23
• Review the flexible working policy (once the government legislation has been published) - q3 22/23
• Promote the current policies available to support staff, including the Carers Policy, Menopause Policy and Domestic Abuse Policy - q3 22/23
• Develop practical guidance and decision-making framework for managers on reasonable adjustments to support their staff - q4 22/23
• Revise the carers policy that recognises the needs of people; with diverse responsibilities such as caring for parents, children and people with disabilities - Q4 22/23
• Review the recruitment and selection policy to ensure our approach can attract the best candidates to vacancies and is inclusive - Q4 22/23
• Establish whether more jobs could be advertised as open to flexible/part time/job share - Q4 22/23
• Carry out annual staff satisfaction survey broken down by protected characteristics - q4 22/23
• Improved marketing of South Tyneside Homes as an employer of choice and to reach a higher number of potential employees, including those from diverse backgrounds - q4 23/24
• Target apprentice recruitment to address underrepresentation in our staff profile - q4 23/24

We have also begun considering thinking about actions beyond this year. You can read our full EDI Strategy here.

Research has been carried out on comparator employer data for 2021 (2022 data has not been published yet):

Three comparator employers had a worse gender pay gap than South Tyneside Homes and one had a lower gender pay gap.