The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) has produced a report on Gender Pay Gap reporting, reflecting on the results of the first set of statistics published by employers in April this year and considering how the regulations can be amended for future years.
The key recommendations of the report were as follows:
- That the government consults on how the regulations and guidance underpinning gender pay gap reporting can be clarified.
- That organisations are required to provide a narrative explaining the gender pay gap information they have provided (currently the provision of such narratives is optional) and that they are required to provide an action plan setting out how pay gaps are being and will be addressed including objectives and targets. Progress against the action plan should be included in future reports.
- That the Equalities and Human Rights Commission is given greater powers to enforce gender pay gap reporting, including the ability to levy fines.
- That the regulations are amended so that salary information must be given in deciles not quartiles.
- That there is a requirement for both full-time and part-time gender pay gap statistics to be published.
- That the qualifying threshold for organisations being required to publish gender pay gap reports stays at those with 250 or more employees next year, but that the following year the threshold be reduced to organisations of 50 employees or more.
- That partner pay be included in the statistics.
- That the government consult on introducing a requirement for organisations to also collect and report pay gap data in respect of disability and ethnicity with the aim of introducing this requirement in time for the 2020 reporting round.
Kerry Garcia