28.10.15
Global first as Camden analyses its pay gap by gender, disability and ethnicity
Camden Council has become the first organisation in the world to independently analyse the pay gap in its workforce by gender, disability and ethnicity.
The information it has published online today (28 October) also broke down pay given to staff by job level.
In terms of gender, women tended to receive less than men while working at the same job level, although differences were only marginal. But at a higher level – zone 1 of level 6 – the pay difference favoured men by more than 12%. This was by far the biggest pay gap observed in the council.
Disabled people appeared to receive more pay than non-disabled people across many job levels. At higher levels, for example, disabled employees received almost 8% more than non-disabled staff.
There was no statistically important difference between the pay of white and non-white staff, who received roughly equal pay at different levels. Where a gap did exist, it was small, sometimes in favour of BME people and sometimes not.
Council leader Cllr Sarah Hayward said she was “incredibly proud” that the data didn’t show any significant pay gaps in the organisation, but recognised that there were areas for improvement – and noted that publishing the information equates to making a public commitment to tackle issues.
The council’s pioneering analysis followed a new clause in the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill, added in March, which will require companies with 250 or more employees to publish information about gender pay gaps from April 2016 – now also including the public sector after a government announcement this weekend.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission also recently revealed that the UK’s gender pay gap stands at almost 20% for all employees.
Deputy chair of the commission, Caroline Waters, said: “We welcome this important step by Camden Council to publish a pay analysis of its workforce. Evidence and transparency are a vital first piece in helping us to understand the landscape before we can progress to identify and address any pay gap injustice.
“Whilst government proposals for mandatory reporting for organisations with more than 250 staff would only apply to gender, Camden are to be applauded for proactively taking the initiative one step further.”
Building on this, Hayward said: “We’re going further than anyone else to publish this information because we believe it’s important to hold ourselves to account and ensure equality is at the heart of organisation and throughout our workforce.
“We want to constantly challenge ourselves to achieve the best possible representation within our workforce at all grades and parts of the organisation.”
According to the council, it provided a higher level of detail, analysis and comparison data than is done in the public sector as standard. Because of this, it welcomes an open scrutiny of its data and feedback from staff, trade unions and members of the public.
It will also update and publish this data every year as part of its commitment to transparency.