Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee recommend extending the range of Gender Pay Gap reporting
06 August 2018
The Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee have concluded ‘that overall, compliance was very good’ which they acknowledge was in part due to the effective enforcement by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). The committee however believe that the ‘the government was remiss in failing to clarify the legal sanctions available to the EHRC to pursue those failing to comply and we recommend that the government rectifies this error at the next opportunity.’
The Gender Pay Gap Reporting Thirteenth Report of Session 2017–19 makes a number of recommendations which if accepted by the government will see regulations being laid that make changes to the calculations required plus clarify and strengthen the legal sanctions available to the EHRC. The Committee is calling upon government ‘to be more ambitious, by requiring more detailed statistics to be provided to aid analysis and, crucially, by requiring organisations to explain what they are doing to tackle their gender pay gaps.’
The most significant recommendation however would see ‘the qualifying threshold remains at 250 employees next year, but the following year be reduced to organisations of 50 employees or more. We further recommend that the government provides the necessary support, particularly in terms of guidance, to smooth this transition.’
Equity Partners
The Committee believed that by excluding the ‘highest paid people in organisations makes a nonsense of efforts to understand the scale of, and reasons behind, the gender pay gap.’ And believes that ‘The government was wrong to omit the remuneration of partners from the figures required in the Regulations’. Going on to recommend that the government uses the guidance to clarify how data on partner pay should be calculated and included in time for the publication of data next year.
A further recommendation, if accepted, will see government publish a consultation that would propose the requirement to collect and report pay gap data in respect of disability and ethnicity with a view to introducing this requirement in time for publication in 2020.
The report can be read in full at the Parliament UK website.