Gender pay gap statement 2023

The mean value is based on total pay for the group, divided by the number in the group being measured. The mean gender pay gap for the Council at the end of March 2023 narrowed to 7.3% compared to 8.5% the previous year.  The median measure (the middle numerical value in the male and female salary lists for every member of staff in the Council, ranked highest to lowest) shows a reduction in the overall pay gap from 10.2% to 8.7%. This means, that when comparing the mid-point of all males' salaries with the mid-point of all females' salaries, the gap has now reduced by 1.3% to 8.7%.

The Council’s pay gap results from the fact that the Council has a large number of female employees working in traditionally low-paid cleaning and catering roles, where there is an over-representation of female workers. In the upper quartile, where the jobs tend to be professionally qualified or dependent on several years of management or other types of experience, women are under-represented but make up 65% of the top 5% of earners and over half of the Strategic Leadership Team.  However, the figures compare favourably with the average UK gap 14.9% (Office for National Statistics) and EU average 12.7% (European Commission). 

 Gender pay gap over time

Over the last nine years the Council’s mean gender pay gap has reduced considerably from 21.8% to 7.3% and the median from 18.2% to 8.7%.

There is no legislative requirement to publish information on other protected characteristics, however analysis for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) employees showed the Council had a negative 9.6% median pay gap but a positive 0.7% mean pay gap.  There is however a small positive 0.7% mean pay gap, meaning that when assessing the mean hourly rate of pay for BAME employees against the mean hourly rate for non-BAME staff, BAME employees are in roles that overall mean they were 11p per hour less. For disabled employees a negative median of 13.7% (up from 10.4% last year) and a negative 4.3% mean (up from 3.3%) demonstrating that disabled employees are paid more than non-disabled employees by both measures.

Regionally benchmarking is currently only available for 2022 as no Council in the region has yet published information for 2023.
It is difficult to make a like for like comparison with our neighbouring authorities, as each has outsourced different services, some of which can have a significant impact where they include jobs traditionally undertaken by women at a lower level of pay and where the numbers of those roles make up a significant proportion of the overall workforce.