Gender Pay Gap report

Introduction

Torbay Council’s Gender Pay Gap is provided in compliance with the ‘The Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties and Public Authorities) Regulations 2017’ which came into force on 31 March 2017.

It also reaffirms the council’s commitment to being a fair and inclusive employer where every member of staff feels valued and supported to succeed, regardless of their gender or other protected characteristics. Creating an environment where everyone is able to achieve their full potential benefits employees and ensures that we can make the best use of the skills and talent available in supporting the people of Torbay. Our pay and grading structure and pay processes are a part of the Council’s overall approach to ensuring fairness and consistency for our workforce and supports the objectives of the over-arching Our People Strategy.

Scope

This report covers all employees of Torbay Council including all staff permanently and temporarily employed on the reporting ‘snapshot date’ (31 March 2023). This includes those on casual contracts that worked during the pay period ending 31 March 2023.

In accordance with the Regulations, employees of Torbay Council’s maintained schools* are treated as being employed by the governing body of the school and not as Council employees. Consequently, employees in maintained schools have been excluded from the Council’s gender pay calculations. The duty to report GPG information applies to organisations with 250 or more employees. None of Torbay Council’s maintained schools individually exceed this figure and so will not need to make a submission. In the case of schools who are part of a multi-academy trust and which may collectively exceed 250 employees, they will be required to report their gender pay information as the employer and take advice as appropriate.

* Maintained schools are regarded as foundation, community, voluntary, nursery or special schools. (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/gender-pay-gap-reporting-overview)

Definition of Pay

Under the regulations, and therefore in this report, ‘pay’ includes: basic pay, paid leave (including annual leave, sick leave, maternity, paternity, adoption and parental leave (except where an employee is paid less than usual because of being on leave)), allowances, shift premium pay and bonus pay. ‘Pay’ does not include: overtime pay, expenses, the value of salary sacrifice schemes (however the reduction to salary is included), benefits in kind, redundancy pay and tax credits. 

Gender pay gap and equal pay

The gender pay gap is defined as the difference between the pay of men and women. While there are many ways of presenting this data, under the regulations and in this report there are only two measures: median hourly pay and mean hourly pay. Each is represented as the percentage of the difference with men’s pay being the divisor.

What the result indicates:

• a positive percentage figure indicates that generally, female employees have lower pay/bonuses.
• a negative percentage figure indicates that generally, male employees have lower pay/bonuses.
• a zero percentage figure indicates that there is no gap or completely equal pay/bonuses. 

For example, with a 3% pay gap women earn 97p for every £1 a man earns, whereas a -3% figure indicates that women earn £1.03 for every £1 a man earns. Gender pay gap is not about men and women being paid differently for the same job which has been prohibited by equal pay legislation since 1975. Even with this legislation, historically certain occupations have attracted greater pay due to the value placed on typical masculine and feminine skills.

To comply with equal pay legislation, we operate a recognised job evaluation scheme which covers all posts within the Council. This is supported by periodic pay data reviews to ensure that our pay structure remains transparent and free from gender bias. The Council seeks external advice on JE where required and regularly benchmarks against market data.

Defining pay gaps

A gender pay gap of less than +/- five percent is considered to be acceptable as defined by the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s Equal Pay Toolkit. All gender pay gaps of three percent or more are subject to further analysis to identify the main causes and contributory factors of any pay differences.

A positive pay gap indicates that men are paid more, a negative pay gap indicates that women are paid more.

Analysing pay gaps

In regard to Gender Pay Gap Reporting, both the mean and median figures have to be reported, however, the median is referred to, to highlight the overall gender pay gap as it is more representative of the average earnings of a typical person (Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, 2017:5).  Significant pay gaps can often be explained by length of service, market factors, pay protection and/or progression.

Findings

The following summary has been prepared in line with the Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017 which requires public sector employers to publish specific details of their gender pay, as follows:-

• Median gender pay gap in hourly pay.
• Mean bonus gender pay gap.
• Median bonus gender pay gap.
• Proportion of males and females receiving a bonus payment.
• Proportion of males and females in each pay quartile.

The difference between the average (mean and median) hourly rate of pay for male and female employees.

1. The mean pay for women is £17.89 per hour and mean pay for men is £18.28 per hour. Therefore the mean gender pay gap 2.13%.
2. The median pay for women is £17.03 and the median pay for men is £17.26 per hour. Therefore the median gender pay gap is -1.35%.

The difference between the average (mean and median) bonuses paid to male and female employees over the period of 12 months ending with the snapshot date of 31st March 2023.

3. No bonuses were paid to employees during this period.

The proportion of male employees, and of female employees, who were paid bonuses during the period of 12 months ending with the snapshot date of 31st March 2023.

4. No bonuses were paid to employees during this period.
5. The proportions of male and female employees in each quartile of the pay distribution – to be supplied

Findings

Torbay Council employed 1022 employees on 31 March 2023, as a headcount figure.  This figure does not include our School employees.  

The previous Gender Pay Gap Report highlighted a 0.72% mean gap in favour of men and a

-0.38% median gap in favour of women, however this years’ figure shows the gap to be 2.13% mean gap and a -1.35% median gap in favour of women, therefore highlights a wider gap between men and women’s pay than last year.  

The Council’s gender pay gap position remains well below the public and private sector averages.

The mean and median gender pay gaps for the whole economy, i.e. all jobs in all sectors (according to the 2023 Office for National Statistics (ONS) Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) figures, Table 1.12) are 14.3% median and 13.2 mean% for all sectors.

The median and mean gender pay gaps for the whole economy categorized into sectors (according to the 2023 ONS ASHE figures, Table 13.12) are:-

• Median - 14.0% for the public sector and 18.9% for the private sector; 
• Mean – 11.5% for the public sector and 15.6% for the private sector.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/datasets/annualsurveyofhoursandearningsashegenderpaygaptables

The Council introduced a new pay and grading structure in April 2019 and a full equality impact assessment was undertaken to assess any adverse impact upon certain groups, including a gender analysis.  This has since been reviewed and changes to the Council’s job evaluation conventions have further been consulted on with Trades Unions to ensure that evaluation of any new and existing jobs continues to be fair and equitable.

In addition, the following proposals are put forward to review and minimise any pay gaps going forward:-

• Monitor gender pay gap to explore the root causes contributing to any pay gaps and actions required to reduce the gap.
• Continue strategic workforce planning to support the fairness and equity of pay and development of all employees.
• Further work to review our pay and grading structure to ensure that it remains transparent and free from gender bias.
• The Council has been reviewing its overall Pay Policy to provide clarity and transparency in relation to Market Forces and Market Supplements. We review all Market Supplements on an annual basis to ensure that these are appropriate and reflect market conditions. Our Recruitment Strategy and associated policy and processes will be reviewed to ensure that the Council continues to attract and retain a diverse workforce.
• Regular Audits of Job Evaluations Grading outcomes to ensure consistency, fairness and equality of approach and compliance to scheme.
• Implement consistent monitoring of internal promotions and progressions by gender.
• Continue to utilise staff development and talent management opportunities (e.g. through the management development programme, appraisals and apprenticeships).
• Continue monitoring the impact of restructures on staff with protected characteristics such as gender.
• Build-on wellbeing and staff engagement initiatives, such as menopause champions and the introduction of listening circles to provide focused support to staff with protected characteristics.
• The above listed proposals may also be applied to other protected characteristics such as age, disability and ethnicity.

 

Sources of Information:-

More information can be found regarding Torbay Council’s approach to inclusion, our workforce data and equality objectives on our web-pages:-

• Torbay's Inclusion and equality webpage
• Torbay Council’s current pay grades

Equality and Human Rights Commission:

• The gender pay gap research report

ACAS

• Managing gender pay reporting

Office for National Statistics:-

• Understanding the gender pay gap
• Annual survey of hours and earnings - gender pay gap tables