Effective from 1st April 2017 employers with over 250 staff are required to begin collecting data to report on the gender pay gap, which simply put is the difference in aggregate hourly pay between men and women under their employment.
However, if you employ less than 250 staff, you can still voluntarily report on the gender pay gap criteria, although, this is not currently a mandatory requirement.
Who needs to report?
If you’re a school of any kind (other than the one exception of a pupil referral unit) and your organisation employs over 250 people, you won’t be included in your local authority gender pay gap reporting, therefore you must report and publish yourself.
For maintained schools in and out of federations, the governing body is responsible for publishing their own gender pay gap reports.
For academies in and out of chains, and for free schools, the proprietor is responsible for reporting.
Multi Academy Trusts employing 250 or more employees must merge relevant data and report on one set of figures for the organisation.
Unlike all other types of school, independent and private schools should follow the private sector gender pay reporting regulations, and the responsibility for publishing their gender pay reports lies with the legal employer.
What are the data requirements?
Employers required to report on the gender pay gap must provide the following information:
- mean gender pay gap in hourly pay
- median gender pay gap in hourly pay
- mean bonus gender pay gap
- median bonus gender pay gap
- proportion of males and females receiving a bonus payment
- proportion of males and females in each pay quartile period
You can find further guidance about gender pay gap reporting on the Acas and DfE websites.
What happens to the data?
Once the information has been gathered you will need to submit it to the gender pay gap reporting service.
You must also publish the data on your organisations public facing website.
If your organisation is a business or charity it must also publish a written statement. A gap in pay between men and woman doesn’t necessarily mean your organisation has acted incorrectly or discriminatorily. You can also use the written statement to add a ‘supporting narrative’ to help people understand why there is a gender pay gap and what you propose to do in order to close it.
Please note, that your organisation, or possibly your payroll provider, will need to register with the gender pay gap reporting service to meet the submission requirements.
When should the data be published?
Gender pay gap data must be submitted for the whole tax year and include information up to the ‘snapshot date’ or the end of the year as defined below:
- 31st March for public sector organisations including maintained schools, academies, free schools and Multi Academy Trusts.
- 5th April for private sector businesses and charities including independent and private schools.
Therefore, the first submission required by all effected employers will be either 30th March 2018 for public sector organisations or the 4th April 2018 for other businesses and charities, which is the day before the ‘snapshot date’.
Failure to comply with gender pay gap reporting deadlines will risk the Equality and Human Rights Commission (the supervisory body) pursuing enforcement action against the employer.
Do you need support to complete this report?
SAAF’s Payroll Team can provide an end to end service to complete this return on your behalf. To enquire about this service, click the button below:
