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London City Hall’s progress with closing gender pay gap ‘barely noticeable’

The Greater London Authority (GLA) continues to have a significant gender pay gap, new data has revealed.

According to the latest figures, the GLA Group has a gender pay gap due to a lack of women in senior roles.

Yesterday saw the publication of gender pay for all City Hall staff and the LGA’s functional bodies, for the second year running, revealing a “barely noticeable narrowing of the gender pay gap” according to a press release from the mayor’s office, between 2016 to 2017, when using the same methodology used in 2016, moving from 4.82% to 4.81%.

This data was calculated using salary sacrifices such as childcare vouchers, cycle to work schemes and bonus payments, but excluding employees on reduced pay, such as those on maternity or sabbatical leave, providing a new pay gap figure for the GLA of 6.14%, with men being paid £1.79 an hour more than women.

This figure is not comparable with the data for 2016, but will be used against future pay gap data.

Since publishing its gender pay gap data in 2016, City Hall has put in place a number of measures to promote training and promotional opportunities for women, including ensuring that all interview panels are gender balanced.

Departments that have fewer recruitment-trained female managers have been encouraged to undertake training, and the GLA  says that it has offered access to external mentors for women at senior level.

The mayor’s Office for Police and Crime (MOPAC) has a gender pay gap of just 1.42%, whilst the London Legacy Development Corporation has a massive pay gap of 22.3%, with women receiving £6.81 an hour less than men.

Transport for London (TfL) isn’t far behind, with a huge pay gap of 19.7% - the average for full time London workers standing at 16.2%, while nationally it is 18.1%.

In order to reduce the pay gap, TfL is introducing measures, including a specific performance target to reduce the gender pay gap each year, anonymous job applications and a new development programme for groups that are under-represented in senior roles.

Figures for London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority and Old Oak Common and Park Royal Development Corporation both revealed an inverse gender pay gap, with the women being paid more than men.

Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said that the data “makes for painful reading.”

He added that it is “abundantly clear” that more needs to be done to understand why there are not more women in senior leadership roles, and to remove those barriers.

“I reiterate my call to London’s businesses and organisations to step up efforts to address the pay gap and help make our capital one of equality, opportunity and progress,” he said.

Sam Smethers, chief executive of the Fawcett Society, which campaigns for gender equality, explained: “By publishing the GLA’s gender pay gap data the mayor of London is giving a lead to employers all across the capital to both encourage them to report and to set out their action plans to close the pay gap.

“We know that holding women back holds London’s economy back, so closing the pay gap is essential to closing the productivity gap.

“It is not surprising to see for example TfL reporting a larger pay gap.

“We know that they have highly segregated workforces with men dominating higher paid roles. What matters now is the action they will commit to taking to close the gap.”

Top image: Popartic

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