Gender Pay Gap Report 2019-20

Introduction

The University of Gloucestershire is committed to advancing equality and valuing diversity in all of its practices. It is developing a culture that actively respects and values differences, recognising that staff and students from different backgrounds, cultures and experiences bring valuable insight to the university; that actively combats prejudice, discrimination and harassment by raising awareness and challenging attitudes. It continues to create fair and open policies and processes that encourage and facilitate staff and students to develop and progress, achieving their true potential.

Our Strategic Plan for 2017-2022 states:

“The university is a people-based organisation. Achievement of all our goals depends on the skills, professionalism and engagement of our staff. The highest priority amongst our enablers is therefore to recruit, retain and motivate excellent staff, and to create a working environment in which all staff can achieve their full potential and be part of the transformational purpose of the university.”

This is our third gender pay gap report, enabling a comparison with data from both 2017 and 2018. Whilst we have only been reporting for three years, we are starting to see a positive impact as a result of our actions: Our mean gap is now 13.51%, and our median 13.76%. In our 2017 report our mean gap was 15.58% and our median 18.54%.

We have also seen a reduction in the proportion of women in the lower quartile with a corresponding increase in the percentage of women across the other quartiles.

Given the positive effect of our action plan, we have taken the decision to continue with our existing actions. In addition, we have extended our activities to include actions identified as ‘promising’ within the government’s publication, ‘Reducing the gender pay gap and improving gender equality in organisations: evidence-based actions for employers’.

Contextual information

The university welcomes the opportunity to report on its gender pay gap; we are keen to play our role in achieving real gender equality.

From 2018 we took the decision to incorporate our gender pay gap action plan within our equality and diversity objectives for 2018-2022. We also continue to undertake biennial equal pay reviews, with a review being due later this year, 2020.

One important point to note is that gender pay gap is different to equal pay. Equal pay refers to the differences in pay between men and women who carry out ‘like work’ – work that is broadly similar; work rated as equivalent under a job evaluation scheme, or work found to be of equal value in terms of effort, skill or decision making. A gender pay gap shows the difference in average pay between men and women, regardless of grade.

Our data*

For the purpose of this calculation, the university’s workforce
was 1,348 with a gender profile which is 59% female and 41% male.

The mean and median gender pay gap based on an hourly rate of pay calculated in accordance with the regulations:

The mean and median bonus gender pay gap and the proportion of men and women receiving a bonus payment:

• mean bonus gender pay gap is 22.03%
• median bonus gender pay gap is 18.41%
• proportion of men receiving a bonus is 0.73%
• proportion of women receiving a bonus is 0.13%.

A small number of senior leaders receive a bonus. Any change therefore has a big impact on our percentage figures. It is inappropriate to compare year on year data in relation to bonuses.

Pay band quartiles 2019

The proportion of men and women in each quartile pay band.

Each quartile is calculated by dividing the workforce into four equal parts.
For the university this equates to 337 employees per quartile.

Percentage of men and women in each quartile

Top Quartile
Women = 43.0% Men = 57.0%

Upper Middle
Quartile Women = 56.3% Men = 43.7%

Lower Middle Quartile
Women = 68.5% Men = 31.5%

Lower Quartile
Women = 69.1% Men = 30.9%

Our action plan

We are starting to see a positive impact from our action plan,
but recognise that sustained and purposeful change will take time.

The impact of our short-term measures will only be effective in the longer term.

Whilst continuing with our current actions, we are enhancing some activities, particularly in relation to recruitment and selection. We are also incorporating some of the ‘promising actions’ identified in the government publication: ‘Reducing the gender pay gap and improving gender equality in organisations: evidence-based actions for employers’.

We will:

• Undertake an equal pay review every two years with the findings reported to university’s Executive Committee.
• Continue to actively support and encourage women to apply for Associate Professor and Professor vacancies.
• Continue to update related HR policies in collaboration with the trade unions.
• Rationalise our suite of pay and benefit policies to provide clear, consistent and easy to understand advice and guidance.
• Identify and implement actions that will impact positively on roles where horizontal occupational segregation appears to exist.
• Take steps to ensure that our recruitment and selection processes are without bias. This includes using gender neutral language in our job descriptions; using positive action statements in our job adverts; placing our adverts in a diverse range of communication channels; using skills-based test where tests are to be used; include multiple women in shortlist and promotions; introduce transparency to promotion, pay and reward processes and communicate our family friendly and flexible working policies. Executive had already agreed to implement the positive action provision, Section 159 of the Equality Act 2010.
• Continue to monitor starting salaries to ensure fairness and consistency and challenge inappropriate decisions. The monitoring information will be included in our annual published People Report and reported to Remuneration and HR Committee.
• Continue with Aurora, the Advance HE’s women-only leadership development programme. Since 2013, 35 female members of staff have been supported to participate.
• Develop our existing mentoring practice into a more formal intervention available for all staff and support the establishment of staff networks.