Our Gender Pay Gap has reduced since 2021 for all employees, but there is still work to be done.
Here’s the data behind our figures:
What is the Gender Pay Gap, what’s ours, and why is there one?
The Gender Pay Gap is the difference between the average earnings of men and women, expressed as a percentage difference relative to men’s earnings.
It’s an indicator of the differences in opportunity and choices of men and women within the workplace.
Our workforce is made up of:
- 47 per cent full-time female staff
- 26 per cent part-time female staff
- 23 per cent full-time male staff
- 4 per cent part-time male staff
Across all of our employees, excluding casual or variable staff, our median earnings for male staff is £16.98; compared to £14.39 for female staff.
That’s a median gap of 15.24 per cent. The average median gap, according to the Office of National Statistics, is 14.9 per cent.
We’ve been working hard to reduce our gender pay gap, and it is moving in the right direction, having got smaller since 2021.
What’s causing it and what are we doing about it?
Analysis of the data suggests that our gap is mainly caused by a high percentage of women in lower graded posts, rather than a high percentage of males in higher graded posts.
We have a high proportion of front-line services that are traditionally female dominated, such as caring and administrative roles, which are typically paid at lower hourly rates.
A lot of those lower graded posts can be performed part-time, and our flexible working and family-friendly policies mean that those posts most commonly attract women, because, they feel, those conditions better suit their personal requirements.
In order for us to continue reducing the pay gap, we need balance in the gender ratios through the different grades of post.
We can do that by increasing the proportion of males in lower graded roles and increasing the proportions of females in higher graded roles.
Our data, and national statistics, show that the gender pay gap increases significantly for people over 40, and it’s widely felt that this is due to more women taking career breaks and working part-time to facilitate caring responsibilities.
Perimenopause and Menopause typically occur between the ages of 45 and 55, and that also impacts female staff. 73 per cent of our workforce are female, and 71.4 per cent of our workforce are over the age of 40.
So what’s next?
So while our Gender Pay Gap has reduced since 2021 for all employees, there is still work to be done.
We are making progress though. The percentage of females in the upper quartile has increased by 2.7 per cent since 2021, which we hope will continue through our programme of coaching and mentoring.
And we’re continuing to support and encourage:
- women into traditionally male dominated roles
- men into traditionally female dominated roles
- women into more senior posts
- men to make use of the flexible working and family-friendly policies
- an environment where staff feel safe and supported
Our next steps are to:
- Continue to support aspiring female leaders through our coaching and mentoring programme
- use recruitment data to identify causes and actions that may reduce the gap such as exploring gender ratio in different services, and through the recruitment stages for junior and senior posts
- implement a Resolution Policy to improve trust, help to strengthen relationships, and build a safe and supportive environment that improves the culture of the authority, which should have a positive impact on our predominantly female workforce.