Government launches consultation on mandatory gender pay reporting: Have your say

The Government has launched a consultation to establish the details of legislation required to be made in the first half of 2016 on gender pay reporting. The new legislation will make it compulsory for private and third sector employers (with 250 or more employees) to publish gender pay information.

You may recall from my article last month setting out what we can expect in the world of employment law following the Conservative’s election victory that one of David Cameron’s key pledges is to reduce the gender pay gap. Writing in the Times Newspaper following the Summer Budget, David Cameron said, “Transparency, skills, representation, affordable childcare – these things can end the gender pay gap in a generation. That’s my goal”.

Although statistics produced by the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings in 2014 showed that when full time work is taken in isolation the gap between men and women’s pay has almost halved since records began in 1997, the Government believes that transparency will accelerate the reduction in the gap even further.

However, the legislation, which is due to be brought in around April 2016, is yet to be fleshed out. The consultation is giving employers an opportunity to have a say in the mechanisms of the new legislation.

More particularly, it is seeking views on the way that the information is collected; whether this should be providing an overall gender pay gap figure by calculating the difference between the earnings of men and women as a percentage of men’s earnings, providing figures broken down by full time and part time employees or broken down by job grade and title. The consultation recognises that in determining the metrics to be used there is a need to balance meaningful and comparable data against the need for individual confidentiality. It is also seeking employer’s views on the likely implementation costs and the actual / estimated time that is likely to be taken by the person responsible for analysing / publishing the information.

Another key question is whether additional narrative information should be voluntary or prescribed by the regulations and how regularly the information should be published; whether annually or, for example, every two or three years.

The consultation closes on 6 September 2015 and following the responses from the consultation we can expect to see a first draft of the regulations. Whilst it is difficult to predict what will be in the final regulations there is talk of them being phased, to give employers time to prepare.

Whether your organisation will be affected by the new regulations or you simply want to ensure that your policies and practices are providing equality to your workforce and assisting in closing the gender pay gap, myself or another member of the Fox Whitfield team have a wealth of experience dealing with discrimination and equal pay cases. We can also assist you in carrying out a qualifying equal pay audit.

If you would like further information or advice on this or any other employment related matter please contact me on 01173305980 or 07766562730. Or you can email me at dionned@foxwhitfield.com