Agenda item

The Committee received a report of the Head of Human Resources in respect of information on the gender, race and disability pay gaps in the City Council for the period to 31 March 2019 and the work the Council was doing to address any pay gaps.

Members noted in particular that –

1.     The mean gender pay gap was 4.08% and the median gender pay gap is 8.9%;

2.     The City Council was one of a small number of employers in the UK to publish the ethnicity pay gap.  No employers had been identified who publish the disability pay gap;

3.     The reported ethnicity and disability pay gaps relied on holding equalities information for all employees.  91% of the workforce had disclosed their ethnicity. 90% of the workforce had disclosed whether or not they had a disability;

4.     The mean ethnicity pay gap was 12.06% and the median pay gap was 17.56%;

5.     The mean disability pay gap was 1.97% and the median gender pay gap was 3.25%;

6.     Clear plans and targets were in place to reduce the pay gaps in future years.

Members welcomed the report noting the positive progress that had been made.

Key points highlighted during discussion were –

1.     More granular detail was needed to show the differences within the ethnic and disabled groups. The Workforce Analytics Manager confirmed that this could be done and would be included in future update reports. Noted that the information would also be reported to Full Council;

2.     It would be useful to compare the information in the report with educational achievement to help address inequalities;

3.     Employment offers/opportunities information in respect of deprived communities in the City was based on City Wards and postcodes. Members noted that the Performance Target for this was 6.5% with current performance running at 5.5%;

4.     Comment was made that council wards were sometimes diverse comprising both wealthy and poorer communities. Members were informed that the Council’s Educational Skills team helped with this work and that this was supported further by information from a deprivation index produced by the Office of National Statistics to take account of the diversity within council wards;

5.     More work was needed and would be done to mitigate the pay gap in BG6 administrative roles whilst recognising that in many cases this was driven by part time employment with corresponding higher turnover rates as well as career progression;

6.     The current ethnicity target of 11.75% would be reviewed in the near future to  become more ambitious level;

7.     Training for managers would be given greater emphasis specifically highlighting areas of work where minority groups were under represented;

8.     The Council’s website would be reviewed to make it more welcoming and inclusive to BAME and other  minority groups particularly for better paid jobs;

9.     The BAME median trend would be included going forward;

10.  Regarding disability groups it was noted that there was a reliance on employees being open about their disabilities as there was no obligation for any employee to give such information, however the Council proactively encouraged them to do so. Current disclosures were 91% but it was recognised that there was more work to do in this area;

11.  It was noted that a large proportion of part time work was by women (79%) and how this made it more difficult to close the pay gap. This would be looked at in more detail in future reports as it was understood how the structure of employment had a significant impact on the pay gap.

Resolved – That the report and the work that was being undertaken to close the pay gaps be noted.