Agenda item

INFORMATION NOTE OF THE SENIOR HUMAN RESOURCES AND CONTRACTS MANAGER

To update the Committee regarding equalities at the Council and review the current situation in respect of Gender Pay Gap, Equalities Data and Equal Pay Report.

The Committee received an information note entitled Equalities Update

The Committee received an information note entitled Equalities Update

The Senior Human Resources and Contracts Manager confirmed that within the report there were three items:-

The Gender Pay Gap

Equalities Data Requirements

Equal Pay

The Gender Pay Gap and Equalities Data Requirements

The Senior Human Resources and Contracts Manager pointed out the background within the report which stated the requirements.  The legislation had been introduced in April 2017, but the stated first reporting date was 30 March 2018, which would make the data a year old by the time it was published.  She confirmed that all employers with 250 employees or more were required to publish their Gender Pay Gap figures.  It was further confirmed that there were a number of differences in reporting requirements for local authorities in the public sector as there were in the private sector, but were not hugely dissimilar.

The Senior Human Resources and Contracts Manager stated that there were four items of essential reporting which translated into eight separate figures.  She further stated that the calculations were carried out by the outsourced payroll provider Serco, but confirmed that the results had been carefully scrutinised and checked by Human Resources and Finance.  The Senior Human Resources and Contracts Manager reported that, along with a narrative explaining all of the statistics, NHDC had completed, submitted and published their results, meeting the required deadline.

The Senior Human Resources and Contracts Manager went on to report to the Committee that there had been a lot of confusion in the differences in Gender Pay Gap and Equal Pay.  She explained that Equal Pay meant that men and women doing the same job received  the same amount of pay, whereas the Gender Pay Gap looked at the difference between men and women’s average earnings across the whole of the organisation, which was expressed as a percentage of women’s earnings. 

In terms of Equal Pay at NHDC, an objective job evaluation system was used to determine grading, and the Senior Human Resources and Contracts Manager reported that no issues had come to light over equal pay within the organisation.

The Senior Human Resources and Contracts Manager highlighted the figures in Tables 1 and 2 of the report.  She stated that the organisation’s figures demonstrated, on average, women were being paid 25% less than men.  She further stated that there was a requirement to publish gender bonus gap figures due to the organisation presenting long service awards.  She confirmed that the long service award was the same amount for both genders.  The Senior Human Resources and Contracts Manager also informed the Committee that out of the 23 members of staff who had received a long service award, nearly three times as many women than men had received that particular payment.

The Senior Human Resources and Contracts Manager explained to the Committee that there were a total of sixteen grades within the Council.  The top five managerial grades were predominantly filled by males, who earned more than those on lower grades, therefore the overall average hourly rate for men was highly influenced by those at the top of the scale.  The Committee were informed that there were more men employed at managerial level than women within the organisation, which had contributed to the gap, rather than the fact that men were being paid more for those particular jobs. 

The Senior Human Resources and Contracts Manager highlighted that the opportunity to increase the number of females in senior roles was very dependent on relevant vacancies that arose. 

The Senior Human Resources and Contracts Manager explained that Car Allowances were also included in the pay calculations. She stated that, as the more senior graded staff who received that particular benefit were predominantly male, this had influenced the reported average pay figures.

The Senior Human Resources and Contracts Manager confirmed, as written in the report, that additional responsibility payments were included in the pay calculations.  She explained that the gender split was quite small, but would still add to the higher calculation of averages.

The Senior Human Resources and Contracts Manager referred to Table 3 within the report, and the graph which illustrated the significant breakdown of grades within the organisation between males and females.  She confirmed that up to, and including Grade 8, there were more women working in the Council than men.  Thereafter, the percentages began to swap over.  The greater number of men than women in the higher grades increased the average hourly rate for men in the Council.

The Senior Human Resources and Contracts Manager confirmed to the Committee that the Council had a large number of customer facing administrative roles graded below 8.  It was explained that many of those jobs were part-time or had suitable flexible working hours which made them more attractive to women with caring responsibilities.  The pattern of roles in the lower quartiles were predominantly held by females, and was further exacerbated by the fact that the Council outsourced many of its operational functions.  It was reported that if those roles were filled by NHDC employees, there would then be an increased number of men within the lower two quartiles and the gender pay gap would be significantly reduced.

The Senior Human Resources and Contracts Manager stated that the workforce at NHDC was regularly monitored and appropriate action taken if there were areas of concern identified.  She confirmed that the Council had a number of policies and procedures that ensured transparency, fairness and equality listed within the report at paragraph 3.1.6.

The Corporate Human Resources Manager pointed out that the language used within the report could perhaps be altered to communicate better the Gender Pay Gap explanation.  The Corporate Human Resources Manager explained that women were earning less because they were working part time or working in a lower grade post through choice, rather than being paid less.

The Senior Human Resources and Contracts Manager reported that every year equalities data was submitted by the end of January for the previous year.  She explained that this was the data breakdown of the Council workforce profile across nine protected characteristics.  She confirmed that the data was reported on the NHDC website, but not to Government centrally.  However, she informed the Committee that there was a move to report to Government in the future.

The Senior Human Resources and Contracts Manager referred to the figures on the graphs shown on pages 39 and 41 of the report, confirming that the make up of the Council’s workforce by protected characteristic was very stable.  She further went on to reaffirm the equality data figures that were shown on the graphs containing Gender, Disability, Ethnic Origin, Sexual Orientation, Religion, Age and Marital Status analysis.

The Senior Human Resources and Contracts Manager – Equal Pay Review

The Senior Human Resources and Contracts Manager referred to paragraph 3.3 of the report confirming the importance of the Equal Pay element, stating that the Council had been undertaking those reviews since 2007.  She further stated that they were satisfied there had been no significant inequalities in the pay system, highlighting that on review, there had been a significant number of the minority groups earning the same or more than the comparison groups over the reviews undertaken.

The Senior Human Resources and Contracts Manager confirmed that the Equal Pay Reviews looked at grade, gender, age, ethnic group, disability, religion and sexuality being very similar characteristics to the Equalities Data.  She stated that the Council had looked at a number of different elements of pay and data from 2017 and that had been extracted from the payroll system and was being analysed.  She confirmed that initial findings would be given to the Committee in June with a presentation of the Report in September.