As an organisation that employs over 250 members of staff (both casual and permanent), we’ve undertaken Gender Pay Gap Reporting as required by the Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information Regulations 2017).
As an organisation that employs over 250 members of staff (both casual and permanent), we’ve undertaken Gender Pay Gap Reporting as required by the Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information Regulations 2017).
We can report that the Students’ Union has a 1.7% median pay gap, and a mean gender pay gap of 11%, which is significantly less than the UK average of 17.4% and the Higher Education Sector of 14.1%.
The requirements of the regulations require that data is taken over a snapshot period, for the purpose of this report, the snapshot period was March 2017 for permanent staff and the 12 weeks prior to 5 April 2017 for casual staff.
Equal pay vs gender pay gap
It is important to note the difference between equal pay and the gender pay gap. Equal pay deals with the pay differences between men and women who carry out the same jobs, similar jobs or work of equal value. Gender pay gap reporting shows the difference in the average pay between all men and women in the workforce.
So why do we have a gender pay gap?
We’re confident that the gender pay gap does not stem from paying men and women differently. Rather our gender pay gap is the result of two factors:
- A large student staff workforce that is 60—70% female and reflective of the demographic of the University.
- A small senior management team, that currently includes one female and three males with one of the males taking the most senior position of Chief Executive.
In order for there to be no gender pay gap, there would need to be an identical distribution of males and females across all roles.
To ensure fairness and transparency we have a number of policies and processes in place around pay and recruitment that include:
- All casual staff being paid a fixed hourly wage irrespective of gender.
- All permanent staff are recruited to roles that have been through job evaluation, and sit within a defined salary scale, to ensure fair pay.
- We have a pay policy in place with incremental increases to pay on an annual basis.
What are we doing next?
As an organisation committed to equality we will continue to ensure that our recruitment practices are transparent and fair, and that female employees do not face any barriers to recruitment or promotion.
We are particularly keen to ensure that future applications are encouraged from female candidates for positions within the senior management team when they are open for recruitment
If you would like to read the full report you can do so below.