Under the Equality Act 2010 we have an obligation to calculate, report and publish gender pay gap data. There are very specific rules and calculations that have to be used. Pay gaps are calculated by establishing the hourly pay of colleagues when taking into account their basic pay, allowances, hours worked, sick leave pay and annual leave pay as of 31st March each year. The calculations do not include overtime payments, redundancy payments or reimbursements.
The same must be calculated and published for bonus payments however Bury Council do not pay bonuses to any colleagues.
Pay gaps are calculated and reported as:
- Mean (average) gender pay gap: the difference between the hourly rate of pay of male full-pay relevant employees and that of female full-pay relevant employees
- Median (mid-point) gender pay gap: the difference between the mid point hourly rate of pay of male full-pay relevant employees and that of female full-pay relevant employees
- Quartile pay bands: the proportions of male and female full-pay relevant employees when divided into equal quarters of lower, mid lower, mid upper and upper quartiles.
Gender Pay Gap
The gender pay gap is an equality measure that shows the difference in mean and median average earnings between women and men.
Gender Pay Gap data and analysis
The Council's Gender Pay Gap data for 2021/22 compared with 2020/21:
Women's hourly rate (compared to men’s hourly rate)
|
Average |
2020/21 |
2021/22 |
|
Mean |
3.71% lower |
3.26% lower |
|
Median |
2.02% lower |
2.41% lower |
Quartile pay bands
|
|
2020/2021 |
2021/2022 |
||
|
Quartile |
Men |
Women |
Men |
Women |
|
Upper |
31.36% |
68.64% |
30.98% |
69.08% |
|
Mid Upper |
31.30% |
68.70% |
34.36% |
65.64% |
|
Mid Lower |
42.47% |
57.73% |
37.80% |
62.20% |
|
Lower |
17.60% |
82.40% |
17.35% |
82.65% |
Comparison summary
With regards to the mean payment, we have reduced the pay gap by 5.5 percent over the last 6 years. We have also reduced the median pay gap by 5.3 percent over the last 6 years. We have only seen a reduction in the median pay gap for 4 out of 6 years, as there was a slight increase in the median pay in 2019/20 compared to the previous year and this year compared to last.
Figures from the Office of National Statistics taken from the annual survey of hours and earnings (ASHE) cites the gender pay gap to be 8.3 percent nationally and 9.2 percent in the Northwest. Although we have clearly made progress in having a pay gap 5 percent lower than the national average and 5.9 percent lower than the Northwest average, there is still more to be done to reduce the gap further.
Disability Pay Gap
Although we are not obliged to calculate and report a disability pay gap we do this as this helps us to understand the equality impacts of our recruitment processes and the experiences of our disabled colleagues in their employment and career development. We use the same pay gap calculations to calculate our disability pay gap.
Disabled colleague’s hourly rate (compared to non disabled colleagues)
|
Average |
2020/21 |
2021/22 |
|
Mean |
4.43% higher |
1.45% higher |
|
Median |
13.27% higher |
3.07% higher |
Ethnicity Pay Gap
Although we are not obliged to calculate and report an ethnicity pay gap we do this as this helps us to understand the equality impacts of our recruitment processes and the experiences of our colleagues from racially minoritised communities in their employment and career development. We use the same pay gap calculations to calculate our ethnicity pay gap.
Racially Minoritised colleague’s hourly rate (compared to non racially minoritised colleagues)
|
Average |
2020/21 |
2021/22 |
|
Mean |
6.41% lower |
4.57% lower |
|
Median |
0.00% |
2.00% higher |
Progress to reduce our pay gaps
During the past 12 months we have implemented several programmes and areas of work that support colleagues with all characteristics and make significant progress in reducing our pay gaps, including:
- The council is providing help to support the financial wellbeing of employees including financial planning and advice, Urgent financial help, emotional and physical wellbeing support
- Extending the real living wage to include apprentices, this included uplifting all the apprentices on the old apprenticeship pay scale
- Leading on an Inclusive Public Services Project and the development of a Cross Organisation Mutual Mentoring programme that has a focus on race and disability.
- A management development programme for all managers
- A bespoke aspiring manager programme and management apprenticeships. welcoming applications from underrepresented groups especially from those from communities facing racial inequality.
- Increasing the pay of our lowest paid staff so that our minimum pay point is Grade 3. This will be done by removing Spinal Column Point 1 from the national pay spine from April 2023
- Adopting simpler and flexible recruitment methods to remove potential barriers to employment for example through CV applications and working interviews.