UK: gender pay gap reporting deadline passes, new guidance published

The deadline for the second year's gender pay gap reports has now passed, with roughly the same number of employers as last year's total meeting the deadline (and almost half of them doing so in the last week).  Just over half of private companies have reported gaps that are higher or no lower than last year's, which is unsurprising given that, even if employers have taken measures to narrow the gap, these are likely to take time to show results.  However, commentators have used the lack of progress to urge the Government to make mandatory the publication of action plans to narrow the gap, a call that to date has been resisted by the Government (see here).

There is plenty of guidance available for employers looking for ways to try and improve their figures for next year.  In addition to recommendations from the EHRC and a parliamentary select committee (see here), the Government Equalities Office recently published two sets of guidance, Eight ways to understand your gender pay gap and Four steps to developing a gender pay gap action plan, along with an action note and infographic summarising the evidence based actions employers can take to support women to progress, to help to close the gender pay gap and increase gender equality in the workplace.  The Women and Work All Party Parliamentary Group have also launched How to recruit women for the 21st Century (see here for further details) which, among other recommendations, calls on the government to commission or publish new guidance for employers on positive action.

Employers are not currently required to report on the ethnicity pay gap; a Government consultation on introducing such a duty closed at the end of January 2019 and its response is awaited.  In the meantime, a number of large employers have signed up to a pledge to report voluntarily, organised by Involve, which has published a Framework for Ethnicity Pay Gap Reporting to assist employers - available here.