The government has published the draft The Equality Act (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2016. The draft Regulations set out the framework for the new gender pay reporting requirements.
Under the draft regulations, employers with 250 staff or more will be required to provide the following information on the whole workforce and publish it on the employer’s website:-
(a) Difference in mean pay between men and women in the workforce;
(b) Difference in median pay between men and women in the workforce;
(c) Difference in bonuses between men and women in the workforce;
(d) The proportion of men and women who receive bonuses in the workforce;
(e) A gender pay split breakdown between quartile pay bands.
The regulations are intended to come into force in October 2016. However, the first reporting date is 30th April 2017 (i.e. that is the point in time on which the mean and median pay is worked out) but employers have up to a year thereafter to publish the report i.e. by 30th April 2018).
Employers will be required to publish mean and median pay information gleaned from the whole workforce. They must also publish how many men and women appear in each quartile of pay in the workforce.
The employer’s website containing the report must be accessible to staff and the general public report so it cannot simply be uploaded to the Company’s internal intranet. The report must be left on the employer’s website for at least three years and the employer must also provide the information with the report which may be uploaded to a government run website.
The government’s initial intent is for employers who do not comply to be ‘named and shamed’, and will review whether civil or criminal penalties for non-compliance should be introduced in due course.
We will be covering this subject in a lot more detail at our free employment law update seminar in April, the full details of which will be coming out shortly.
Edward Aston
18th February 2016