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 committed to eliminating discrimination and encouraging equality and diversity in our workforce. This approach is endorsed in our Council Plan which includes an assurance of equality and fairness in respect of gender.
Our equality objectives aim to get more people to tell us they experience fair treatment by Council services; to make our workforce representative of our communities, with more people from diverse backgrounds involved in decision-making at every level; that equality and diversity is embedded in staff culture; and that we celebrate growing diversity and increase respect and understanding for all.
Blackpool Council is a unitary authority, which provides around 150 services to 142,000 Blackpool residents. All our employees are remunerated according to job evaluation and set pay scales.
Our workforce is currently 2851 employees, in the scope of the Gender pay gap of whom two thirds are female (66.4 %).
What are we required to report
Report requirements
| Mean gender pay gap |
The difference between the mean hourly rate of pay of male full-pay relevant employees and that of female full-pay relevant employees
|
|---|
| Median gender pay gap |
The difference between the median hourly rate of pay of male full- pay relevant employees and that of female full-pay relevant
employees
|
|---|
| Mean Bonus Gap |
The difference between the mean bonus pay paid to male relevant employees and that paid to female relevant employees
|
|---|
| Median Bonus Gap |
The difference between the median bonus pay paid to male relevant
employees and that paid to female relevant employees
|
|---|
| Quartile pay bands |
The proportions of male and female full-pay relevant employees in the lower,lower middle, upper middle and upper quartile pay bands
|
|---|
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 31st March 2020.
Data
| Reference | Description | Gap |
|---|
|
1
|
Mean Pay Gap
|
-0.77 %
|
|
2
|
Median Pay Gap
|
-5.40 %
|
|
3
|
Mean bonus gender pay gap
|
Not applicable
|
|
4
|
Median bonus gender pay gap
|
|
5
|
Proportion of males /females receiving a bonus payment
|
|
6
|
Proportion of males and females in each quartile pay band
|
4.0 Findings
You will see in Figure 1 below that the Mean Gender Pay Gap data of -0.77 % and the Median Gender Pay Gap -5.40 % are consistent over the last 4 reporting years.
Fig 1
Findings
| Description | ToMarch 2017 | ToMarch 2018 | To March 2019 | To March 2020This year |
|---|
|
Published by
|
April 18
|
April 19
|
April 20
|
April 21
|
|
Mean
|
0.7 %
|
-1.0%
|
-0.94%
|
-0.77%
|
|
Median
|
-6.0 %
|
-5.8%
|
-6.69%
|
-5.40%
|
These figures also fair favourable with the national picture which reports that the gender pay gap for all employees was 15.5% in 2020, - Source : Office of National statistics
Although these figures are favourable for the Council, we are not complacent and will continue to monitor our performance, along with 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.
- Provision of job/career opportunities.
- Flexible working (Flexitime) in many locations including the opportunity Agile/homeworking in many Council roles
- Voluntary Reduced Hours, Job Share and Career Break Schemes.
- Signposting Childcare Information.
- Compassionate/Special Leave arrangements including the introduction of Parental Bereavement leave about 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 E-learning for all.
- 360-degree feedback process for managers.
- Development of Coaching and mentoring programmes.
- Annual staff conference and awards ceremony.
- menopause -staff support group established and a development of a managers training package
Leadership
- Maintaining a Strategic Equality and Diversity Manager who is a member of the Senior Leadership Team.
- Introducing a Directorate Equality self-assessment supported by the Equality Manager
- Introducing Development programmes for aspiring managers.
- Audit undertaken to review resilience and governance given continuing staff reductions.
- Introduction of a Leadership Charter and Survey.
Recruitment and retention
- An established on line jobs portal, where all jobs are advertised.
- The use of both structured and unstructured interviews in the recruitment processes
- Establishment and maintenance of a job evaluation system using nationally recognised NJC and Hays schemes.
- Salary Scales clearly showing incremental progression and related criteria.
- Established Foundation living wage.
- Monitoring of recruitment data as part of workforce equality monitoring.
- Relaxation of childcare/caring support rules when employee are homeworking
Finally, despite the relaxation of the rules in reporting Gender pay gap data due to Global pandemic, the Council has continued to report its data through this time.
5.0 Agreement
I confirm that Blackpool Council is committed to the principle of gender pay equality and has prepared its 2020 gender pay gap results in line with mandatory requirements.
Signed: Neil Jack Chief Executive