Last chance for employers to report their gender pay gaps
28 March 2018
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has warned that this is a ‘last chance saloon’ for employers to report their gender pay gap as it publishes its final strategy on how the new regulations will be enforced.
Detailing the different stages of legal action that all non-compliant employers will face after the deadlines pass, (30 March for public sector organisations and 4 April for businesses and charities) the strategy explains enforcement action will start when the Commission writes to all employers who have not complied with the law.
At the time of publishing this news, 60% of the 9,000 or so employers expected to comply, have published their data on the government’s viewing service.
The Commission will be sending letters to all non-compliant employers on 9 April and they will be given 28 days to comply before an investigation takes place and an unlawful act notice is issued. Failure to comply with the regulations will ultimately lead to an unlimited fine decided by the courts.
Read about the CIPP’s response to the commission’s consultation on gender pay gap enforcement.
Who needs to report
All private and voluntary sector employers with 250 or more employees in England, Wales and Scotland must publish information on their gender pay gap under the Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017.
All listed public sector employers with 250 or more employees must publish the same information under the Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties and Public Authorities) Regulations 2017. Scottish and Welsh public authorities are subject to additional regulations that include gender pay gap reporting.
Public sector employers must publish the required information by 30 March 2018. Private and voluntary sector employers must report the required pay gap information by 4 April 2018. This is the first year of gender pay gap reporting and is now an annual requirement by the same dates.
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CIPP comment Recent research with the payroll profession conducted by the policy team revealed many calls for a review of the elements of pay and reward that can be included within the average hourly rate for gender pay gap calculations. Significant concerns were also raised by the potentially misleading results caused due to the exclusion of the value of salary sacrifice amounts. Read our white paper to find out what else the experience to date of employers, specifically from the perspective of the Payroll Professional, revealed - Gender Pay Gap reporting - the first year through the lens of the payroll industry. |