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Comission Consultation opens on gender pay gap reporting

17 August 2009

The Consultation is aimed at employers of 250 or more employees in the private and voluntary sectors, as well as representative bodies and trade unions organising in these sectors. We would like to hear from organisations working towards gender equality, individual women working in the private and voluntary sectors, and other stakeholders with an interest in gender pay reporting.

Women working full time currently earn 17.1 per cent less per hour on average than men, with the gap failing to improve in the past three years. The difference in some sectors such as finance, are much wider and the majority of organisations are not aware of their own gender pay gap. The comission believes that developing ways for employers to measure and report on their gender pay gap will be a crucial step towards reducing pay inequity by providing greater transparency.

The Comission is working closely with the business sector, including the confederation of British industry (CBI) and with Trade Union congress (TUC) to develop a consistent way to measure the gender pay difference in organisations.

The aim is to empower private and voluntary sector employers to report on a voluntary basis, but the Equality Bill does contain reserve power which , if a future Secretary of State chose to use, could lead to mandatory reporting if progress has not been made on a voluntary basis by 2013. The Comission has outlined a range of possible approaches and looks foward to recieving input from a wide range of employers.

The Comission will also undertake a baseline survey to find out how many business and voluntary employers are already measuring their gender pay gap. The information gathered will be used to measure the rate of improvement over time.Gender Pay.