Firms wait for clarity from Ministers on gender pay consultation

The ‘Closing the Gender Pay Gap’ Government consultation came to a close this weekend. Businesses across Yorkshire will be eagerly awaiting further details regarding the parameters for disclosing any gender pay information.

The consultation was launched to establish how to implement the requirement on employers with 250 or more employees to publish gender pay gap information. The intention is to encourage employers to recognise that there is a pay gap and consider how to eliminate it.

However, the legislation will not require employers to act on the data they publish and they will not be required to undertake equal pay audits.

The consultation will provide more clarity on whether the information should be the overall difference between the average earnings of men and women as a percentage of men’s earnings, or whether it should be broken down by full-time and part-time employees, or by grade or job type.

The consultation will also highlight where and when the information will be published.

Further clarity will be welcomed by businesses, as it will demonstrate whether the new measures will name and shame businesses purely on the data, or whether the requirements enable businesses to provide analysis behind the difference, which may include non-discriminatory issues such as performance, different job roles and grades.