Further to Minute 14 of the meeting held on 16 March 2022, the Assistant Director of HR and Organisational Development submitted an updated report, presenting the Council’s Gender and Ethnicity Pay Gap reports for 2022, based on the position at the snapshot date of 31 March 2022.  The report stated that the mean gender pay gap was 0.13% and the median was 3.06% compared with 2.06% and 4.91% in 2021.  The mean ethnicity pay gap for 2022 was 2.68%, which meant Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic employees were paid 2.68% lower than their white colleagues on average.  There was a negative median pay gap of 1.76%, meaning that the median pay of white employees was 1.76% less than for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic employees.  Both figures had shown improvement since 31 March 2021, when the mean pay gap was 4.26% and the median was 5.69%. 

The report also contained a more detailed analysis of ethnic groups, which showed some differences that were masked by the overall figures.  Employees from Asian backgrounds and those in ‘Other Ethnic’ groups had higher average pay than white colleagues.  The mean pay gap was largest for employees who identified as Black or Black British, whose pay was 13% lower on average than their white colleagues, followed by employees from Mixed Ethnic backgrounds who were paid 7.4% less than white employees on average.

The report also presented the Workforce Profile for 2021/22 which provided a summary of equalities monitoring data and trends over time.  It covered data on the protected characteristics of the current workforce and job applicants in 2021/22 and compared it with the previous three financial years (2018/19 to 2020/21) where relevant.

The report emphasised the significant benefits for an organisation’s reputation, culture and people of taking positive action on workplace equality. The Ethnicity and Gender Pay Gap reports, along with the Workforce Profile, were a fundamental step on the Council’s journey to improving workplace equality.  It helped to create a baseline to track current progress and drive continual improvement.

The Committee noted that the Gender and Ethnicity Pay Gap data for Brighter Futures for Children was not currently included in the report and requested if adding these statistics could be investigated in the future to enable a wider view of the pay gap to be taken of services for which the Council was responsible.

The following documents were attached to the report:

Appendix 1 - Gender Pay Gap Report for 2022

Appendix 2 - Ethnicity Pay Gap Report for 2022

Appendix 3 - Workforce Profile Report for 2021/22.

Resolved:     That the following reports be noted:

·       Gender Pay Gap Report 2022, as set out in Appendix 1 to the report;

·       Ethnicity Pay Gap Report 2022, as set out in Appendix 2 to the report;

·       Workforce Profile Report for 2021/22, as set out in Appendix 3 to the report.