![[Basket]](images/basket.png){kind=small}
Your order![[cover image]](images/issue/BK201805.jpg)
Compulsory gender pay gap reporting
[ch 7: pages 255-256]Starting in April 2018, gender pay gap (GPG) reporting is in force for employers with 250 or more employees in the public, private and voluntary sector (Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017 and Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties and Public Authorities) Regulations 2017.
Many public bodies across the UK already publish this kind of information to fulfil their statutory duties under the Public Sector Equality Duty (see page 257).
The information that must be published each year is:
• the mean pay gap (the difference between the average hourly earnings of men and women) and the median pay gap (the difference between the midpoints in the ranges of hourly earnings of men and women);
• how many men and women are in each quartile of the employer’s payroll; and
• percentages of staff receiving bonuses by gender, and the gender gap on bonuses.
The regulations use the wider definition of “employee” found in the EA 10 (see page 208). In other words, anyone who is a “worker” must be included.
The data must be published on the employer’s website and remain there for three years. It must also be uploaded to a government website: www.gov.uk/report-gender-pay-gap-data.
The GPG reporting duty will be enforced by the EHRC, which aims to promote compliance without taking formal enforcement action where possible (EHRC, Closing the gap, December 2017). However, the equality body has warned that it plans to take formal steps in relation to the approximately 1,500 employers that missed the April 2018 reporting deadline, using powers contained in the Equality Act 2006.
The new regime does not require employers to explain why pay gaps exist or what they will do to narrow them (such as introducing properly supported return to work plans after maternity leave, or better career progression for returning mothers).
The gender pay gap reporting regulations have not yet been enacted in Northern Ireland. Unlike the position in the rest of the UK, the draft Northern Ireland legislation (the Employment Act (NI) 2016), once in force, will require employers to publish an action plan showing how they intend to eliminate the difference.
Proposals for reform of GPG reporting
In its Sex Discrimination Law Review (see page 208), the Fawcett Society expert panel recommends significantly strengthening the GPG regulations, including:
• cutting the reporting threshold to 50 workers by 2020;
• requiring employers to bargain with unions over equal pay;
• requiring the anonymised information to be broken down into age, disability, ethnicity and part-time status; and
• introducing effective civil penalties for non-compliance, enforced by a properly resourced ECHR.
https://www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/sex-discrimination-law-review-final-report
These proposals echo suggestions on targeting the ethnicity pay gap made by the McGregor-Smith review into racism at work, published in February 2017. This review also recommends that employers:
• draw up five-year aspirational diversity targets; and
• nominate a board member to deliver on these targets.
TUC research published in August 2016 shows that BME workers are a third more likely to be underemployed than their white counterparts, while EHRC research has found that they face higher unemployment rates, lower pay and under-representation in senior roles. The 2017 Conservative Party manifesto promised to extend the GPG regime to include compulsory reporting on the ethnicity pay gap. The government published its “race disparity audit” in October 2017, but no steps have been taken to date to legislate on this.