Gender pay gap report 2023

1.0 Introduction

From April 2017, all organisations that employee over 250 employees are required to report annually their gender pay gap. The gender pay gap is defined as the differences in the average earnings of men and women over a standard period of time, regardless of their role seniority.

A positive pay gap indicates that men are paid on average a greater hourly rate; a negative pay gap indicates that women are on average a greater hourly rate.

2.0 Context

Blackpool Council is a unitary authority, which provides around 150 services to 142,000 Blackpool residents.

All Blackpool Council employees are remunerated according to set pay scales; posts are regularly reviewed and agreed by employee representatives through a formal job evaluation system.  As at 31 March 2023, 2679 employees were in scope for the gender pay gap of which 70.59% were female.

Blackpool Council is committed to eliminating discrimination and encouraging equality and diversity in our workforce. This approach is summarised in our council plan, which outlines 4 key equality objectives.

These include a specific commitment to workforce equality as follows:

We will ensure that the workforce is representative of the community the council serves and equality and diversity is embedded in our staff culture. 

In the year ahead we will be establishing a network of staff equality forums which are intended to deepen our engagement and strengthen dialogue here.

What are we required to report?

The overall gender pay gap is defined as the difference between the median (actual midpoint) or mean (average) basic annual earnings of men and women expressed as a percentage of the median or mean basic annual earnings of men.

3.0 Data

Blackpool's gender pay gap - Based on a snap shot date of 31 March 2023.

You will see in Figure 1 below that the mean gender pay gap data of - 0.43% and the median gender pay gap -5.72% are generally consistent over the last 4 reporting years.

Figure 1

These figures fair favourably with the national picture. Gender pay gap in the UK  which shows in 2023, the gap among full-time employees is 7.7%. Among all employees, the gender pay gap is 14.3% in 2023.

Although these figures are favourable for the council, we are not complacent and will continue to monitor our performance, along with delivering/maintaining initiatives that we have in place which have contributed to these results such as: 

Family friendly

• Actively supporting parents returning to work from maternity leave, shared parental leave or adoption leave by offering job share, career break or part time opportunities
• Carers support leave to support employee with caring responsibilities 
• Flexible working (Flexitime) in many locations including the opportunity for hybrid  working in many council roles
• Voluntary reduced hours, job share and career break schemes
• Signposting to childcare Information
• Compassionate/special leave arrangements including the introduction of parental bereavement leave above the statutory minimum level

Learning and development 

• Annual and interim appraisals for all staff to allow the opportunity to discuss key work objectives and learning and development needs
• Mandatory equalities learning for all
• 360-degree feedback process for managers is available
• Development of coaching and mentoring programmes
• Annual staff conference and awards ceremony
• Menopause - staff support group established, development of a managers training package and related managers guidance introduced
• Manbassador - staff support group established, development of a managers training package and related managers guidance introduced

Leadership

• Head of equality and diversity is a member of the senior leadership team
• Strategic equality steering group with senior officers
• Staff equality groups chaired by head of equality and diversity are being established
• Directorate equality self-assessment process
• Development programmes for aspiring managers
• Leadership charterAttendees on current and past leadership courses evidences good participation from both genders which is generally in line with the workforce gender split

Recruitment and retention

• An established on line jobs portal, where all jobs are advertised
• The use of a variety of selection methods in the recruitment process
• Establishment and maintenance of a job evaluation system using nationally recognised NJC and Hay schemes.
• Salary scales clearly showing incremental progression and related criteria
• Established real living wage
• Monitoring of recruitment data as part of workforce equality monitoring

5.0 Agreement

I confirm that Blackpool Council is committed to the principle of gender pay equality and has prepared its 2023 gender pay gap results in line with mandatory requirements.

Signed:

Neil Jack
Chief executive