Gender pay gap statement

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 2024 has continued to reduce to 5.5%, from 7.3% in 2023 and 8.5% in 2022. 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) also shows a further reduction in the overall pay gap at 8.1%, down from 8.7% in 2023 and 10.2% in 2022.

The Council’s pay gap results from the fact that the Council has a greater 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 60% of the top 5% of earners and over half of the Strategic Leadership Team.

The Council’s pay gap shows that overall men are still paid more than women, however, the figures compare favourably with the average UK gap 13.1% in April 2024 (Source: Office for National Statistics) and EU average 13% in 2021 (Source: European Commission website).

 Gender pay gap over time

Over the last ten years the Council’s mean gender pay gap has reduced considerably from 21.8% to 5.5% and the median from 18.2% to 8.1%.

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 6.11% median pay gap and a negative 0.17% mean figure demonstrating that BAME employees on average are paid more per hour. This is due to a higher proportion of BAME workers being employed in the ‘upper’ and ‘upper middle’ quartile. For disabled employees, there is a negative median of 7.01% and a negative 3.10% mean figure demonstrating that disabled employees are paid more than non-disabled employees by both measures. This is due to a higher proportion of disabled workers being employed in the ‘upper middle’ quartile.

Regional benchmarking is available up to 2023, however, it is difficult to make 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 lower paid women.