Gender pay gap report 2024

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 paid on average a greater hourly rate.

2.0 Context

Blackpool Council is a unitary authority, which provides around 150 services to 141,300 Blackpool residents. (Source ONS Stats Population and migration statistics transformation, Blackpool case study - Office for National Statistics)

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 2024, 2,692 employees were in scope for the gender pay gap of which 71 % 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 the workforce is representative of the community the council serves and equality is embedded in our staff culture.

We have established 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 2024.

4.0 Findings

You will see in Figure 1 below that the Mean Gender Pay Gap data of - 0.52% and the Median Gender Pay Gap -2.46%.

Figure 1

These figures fair favourably with the national picture. The gender pay gap among full-time employees was 7.0% in April 2024, down from 7.5% in April 2023. Among all employees, the gender pay gap decreased to 13.1% in April 2024, down from 14.2% in April 2023. Gender pay gap in the UK - Office for National Statistics

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, paternity leave or adoption leave by offering job share, career break or part time opportunities.
• Carers support leave to support employees with caring responsibilities
• Flexible working
• 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
• Directorate equality self-assessment process
• Development programmes for emerging leaders
• Leadership charter

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 2024 gender pay gap results in line with mandatory requirements.

Signed:

Neil Jack
Chief executive