Issue - meetings

To receive the Gender and Ethnicity Pay Gap Report.

The Board considered the Gender and Ethnicity Pay Gap Report.

During the discussion of this item the following points were made:

·       In response to a question from Councillor Ferris, the Lead Specialist HR assured Members that there was a job evaluation system in place, so people who did the same work, irrespective or whether they had any protected characteristics or not, received equal pay. 

·       Councillor Ferris expressed surprise that there was a small widening of the gap between salaries for males and females.  He was advised that the report looked at the type of roles that people were undertaking and took the mean and median of the pay across the workforce population.  Proportionally there was more women in the lower pay rages than men, primarily because a lot of part time opportunities were offered.  Many of the Council’s part time workers were female.  The majority of part time opportunities were at lower grade.  A piece of work would be undertaken to look at reducing the Gender Pay Gap further.  It would be taken to the Equalities Steering Group in May before being presented to the Personnel Board.

·       Some roles typically attracted particular genders.  For example, administration typically attracted women and many of the lower paid roles were in this area.  All of the lower paid roles which would typically men such as street works and waste collection, had been contracted out, and as such were not included in the figures.

·       Councillor Weeks asked for information on the percentage of female staff who worked full time and the percentage of female staff who worked part time, and the same information for male staff.  The Lead Specialist HR agreed to provide this.

·       Members were advised that for the first time the Ethnicity Pay Gap had been included.  This was not legislatively required but was a requirement of the Race Charter.   The mean ethnicity pay gap was 5.96%. The pay gap that existed did so due to there being a lack of Ethnic Minority colleagues in senior roles.  The Council’s recruitment equality data would be looked at to determine whether the Council was receiving applications for vacant roles from ethnic minorities.  This would inform any necessary action moving forwards.

RESOLVED:  That the Gender and Ethnicity Pay Report be noted prior its publication on 31 March 2021.