Closing the gender pay gap

The Regulations will apply to private and voluntary sector employers (in England, Wales and Scotland) with 250 or more employees who ordinarily work in Great Britain and whose employment contracts are governed by UK law. Among other things, affected employers will be required to publish their overall mean and median gender pay gaps, and to report on the number of men and women in each quartile of their pay distributions. They will need to publish this information on both their own (publicly available) websites and on a government-sponsored website, and to update the information on an annual basis.

The Government aims to monitor compliance levels closely and plans publishing guidance on the Regulations later in the year. It also intends producing league tables by sector (as opposed to identifying particular employers), but as the information will be publicly available it is likely that, certainly in the early years, the media will make much of employers with large gender pay differentials.

The Government suggests that extracting the relevant data should not incur "significant additional costs".  However, while we await the detailed guidance, affected employers within the sector should be turning their minds to how the information required will be captured.  There could be significant reputational implications for voluntary sector employers who get this wrong.

A fuller version of this article, with a more detailed examination of the Regulations, can be found here.

If you require further information on anything covered in this briefing please contact Rachel Lewis ([email protected]; 020 3375 7440, Claudia Rooney ([email protected]; 020 3375 7469) or your usual contact at the firm on 020 3375 7000.

This publication is a general summary of the law. It should not replace legal advice tailored to your specific circumstances.

© Farrer & Co LLP,  May 2016