Gender pay gap

What is the gender pay gap?

East Riding of Yorkshire Council recognises the importance of fair treatment and the positive promotion of equality for all employees. Under the Equalities Act 2010 (Specific Duties and Public Authorities) Regulations 2017 employers with 250 or more employees are required to publish statutory gender pay gap calculations on an annual basis with effect from April 2018. The gender pay gap is a measure to compare the difference in average hourly rates of pay between males and females in the organisation. A positive gender pay gap figure means that men are paid more than women and a negative figure means that women are paid more than men.

The gender pay gap is not the same as equal pay. Equal Pay, which has been an entitlement since 1970, is whether an organisation is paying a male and female differently for work of equal value. The council pay men and women equally for the same work. The gender pay gap indicates whether there is a difference between aggregate pay of males and females throughout the organisation. A gender pay gap does not indicate discrimination.

As at 31 March 2017 the total number of employees included for reporting purposes was 5,118 and the workforce was 63% female and 37% male. The council’s workforce is made up of workers from a wide range of sectors including but not restricted to health, leisure, housing, customer services, planning, transportation, catering and finance.

Gender pay gap

The council is required to report two measures of the difference between male and female pay, the mean and the median. Mean shows the difference between average pay of male and female employees, meaning all salaries added together and divided between the total number of employees, while the Median shows the numerical value which splits the top 50% and bottom 50% of salaries.

>National gender pay gap (average)

The council’s pay gap is positive when viewed in the context of the current ONS national pay gap of 18.4% and work is underway to close the gap further.

Gender bonus gap

The relevant bonus period is the preceding 12 months before the snapshot date. For the purpose of the Regulations guidance is to include long service awards in bonus payments calculations. The council awards £100 to those with 25 or more years’ service and this makes up 64 of the 72 payments. The remaining 8 payments relate to the current Investments team who are the only employees who receive a contractual performance-related bonus. All 8 of these employees are male and it is for this reason that there is no median bonus gap but a 95% mean bonus gap. The high values of the small number contractual performance-related bonus payments affect the median bonus gap value.

Proportion of males and females receiving a bonus

Proportion of males and females in each pay quartile band

Summary

While the council is confident that the gender pay gap is not as a result of equal pay issues there are reasons that women are paid less than men. In the lower 3 quartiles there are more women than men, approximately 2 to 1, while in the top quartile the balance changes to a more equal split with there being slightly more men than women. Women are more likely to occupy lower paid roles while men are more likely to occupy higher paid roles. This is partly due to women undertaking a higher proportion of the caring responsibilities outside the work place. Women occupy roles such as caring and administration which are in the lower pay banding.

In line with government guidance we have deducted any salary sacrifice payments prior to undertaking the gender pay gap calculations, however it should be noted that, due to gender difference in the take up of these schemes, this effects the hourly payments of females more than males as 66% of employees participating in salary sacrifice schemes are female.

A flexible working project is currently underway with a remit to review flexible working practices and ensure that they are widely understood and used where appropriate. In addition analysis will be undertaken to establish if any further flexibilities are required. Such flexibility throughout the organisation has been shown to support women in employment.