Government consults on gender pay reporting

The Government has launched an initial consultation, 'Closing the Gender Pay Gap', with a view to introducing regulations under Section 78 of the Equality Act 2010 that will require employers in the private and voluntary sectors with at least 250 employees to publish information about the pay of their male and female workers.

Employers are asked which, if any, of three methods of calculating the gender pay gap would be possible for them using existing data and systems:

• An overall gender pay gap figure arrived at by calculating the difference between the earnings of men and women as a percentage of men's earnings;
• Gender pay gap figures broken down by full-time and part-time employees; and
• Gender pay gap figures broken down by grade or job type.

The consultation also seeks views on what additional information should be provided by employers, how often and at what point in the year the information should be published and whether the proposed threshold of 250 employees is appropriate for private and voluntary sector employers. In addition, employers are asked to estimate the time it would take to produce the information, and the cost of so doing, and to suggest alternative ways of increasing transparency on gender pay that would limit the cost for employers, for example reporting to the Government via the existing PAYE system.

The consultation document can be found here.

The online consultation questionnaire for responses can be found here.

The closing date for submissions is 6 September 2015.

Contact: David Hacker