14 June 2017
New requirements were introduced from 6 April 2017 for all companies with more than 250 employees, and academy trusts are caught by these changes. Principally this would appear to affect multi-academy trusts where, collectively, the number of staff can easily reach this level.
Trusts affected will have to publish their gender pay gap statistics on their websites, and must do so by April 2018. This will become an annual requirement thereafter.
The following information will need to published:
- Gender pay gap (mean and median averages). This includes basic pay, paid leave, maternity pay, sick pay, shift premium pay and certain over allowances, but not overtime;
- Gender bonus gap (mean and median averages);
- Proportion of men and women receiving bonuses over the preceding 12 months; and
- Proportion of men and women in each quartile of the organisation’s pay structure.
The legislation requires the information to be published in a prominent place on company’s website, so that it is accessible to both employers and members of the public.
Interestingly there is no requirement to explain the numbers, although some employers may choose to do so to help clarify the disclosures.
Gender inequalities have long been a topic for governments to address, and these new measures will go some way to ‘encouraging’ companies to iron out any apparent variances. It is important to note that gender pay reporting is different to equal pay. Equal pay deals with the pay differences between men and women who carry out the same jobs, similar jobs or work of equal value, and it is unlawful to pay people unequally because they are a man or a woman.
The gender pay gap shows the difference in the average pay between all men and women in a workforce. If a workforce has a particularly high gender pay gap, this can indicate there may a number of issues to deal with, and the individual calculations may help to identify what those issues are.
The government has stated that the national gender pay gap is 18.1%, although it is believed that the gap in the education sector is smaller than this.
Whilst any academy trusts affected by the changes have until next April to comply it would be advisable to act now, to ensure that the necessary information and statistics can be extracted from the payroll data. There are currently no penalties in place for non-compliance but this may change, and failure to comply will carry the risk of harming the organisation’s reputation.
We provide payroll services to a number of academy trusts caught by these new rules, and we are currently working closely with them to ensure they are able to meet the requirements. If you would like any help ensuring that you are compliant then please contact your local UHY academy specialist.
Further details are available here.
