Gender Pay Gap data report as of March 2023 and Action plan for 2024

The Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (CoCH) is committed to embedding equality and human rights across the whole organisation and to reducing inequality between any of the protected characteristics in the workplace.  Under the Gender Pay Gap Regulations 2017, CoCH is required to report annually on gender pay gap, utilising a reporting framework set out by the Government Equalities Office (GEO) and to register with the GEO and submit its annual Gender Pay Gap Report (GPGR).

Gender Pay gap definition:

The gender pay gap is a figure that shows the difference in the average pay between all men and women in a workforce. The gender pay gap is the difference between women’s and men’s average salary earnings, expressed as a percentage of men’s earnings. It is a measure of women’s overall position in the paid workforce and does not compare like roles.

How is this different to Equal Pay?

In contrast, ‘equal pay’ is a more specific legal concept that deals with the pay differences between men and women carrying out comparable jobs. While the gender pay gap focuses on an average across the whole organisation across a variety of different role and pay bands. A large difference in the gender pay gap does not necessarily indicate unequal pay, which is determined by what people earn in comparable jobs.

What will the Gender Pay Gap show?

The gender pay gap can indicate that there is some practice to address with regards to if women are in roles that are paid less than men, and potentially, the reasons for this. This may be due to varied reasons, examples of which are listed below. An organisation can look to put together an action plan to improve their Gender Pay Gap.

Examples of potential gender pay gap dynamics in organisations:

• discrimination and bias in hiring and pay decisions
• women and men working in different industries and different jobs, with female-dominated industries and jobs attracting lower wages
• women’s disproportionate share of unpaid caring and domestic work
• lack of workplace flexibility to accommodate caring and other responsibilities, especially in senior roles
• women’s greater time out of the workforce impacting career progression and opportunities
• lack of confidence among female staff seeking pay increases/leadership roles
• occupational segregation
• market-rate salaries. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with setting market-rate salaries, but when this happens in sectors typically dominated by male workers, a gender pay gap can easily surface as a result.

The range of reasons as to why gender pay gap exists across different organisations in all the workforce sectors is a complex issue.  It is important to note that a gender pay gap does not equate to the existence of an equal pay problem, though a gender pay gap may be a catalyst for organisations to look into any reasons as to why the gap exists.

CoCH Gender Pay Gap Report 2023:

The data tables below provide analysis on the Mandatory Gender Pay Gap Reporting for the 2022/23 financial year with the data as of 31^st March 2023:

Table 1 displays the 2022 the mean (average) difference in hourly rate by gender and determines that women are paid £6.78 per hour less than their male colleagues, which is equivalent to a pay gap of 28.6%. This is an increase in the GPG of 2022 by £0.70 per hour.

In column 3, the median hourly rate by gender is also shown which demonstrates that the median figure for women is that they are paid £2.34 per hour less than men, which is equivalent to a pay gap of 13.57%.

Table 2 provides a gender make-up by quartile, of the whole workforce establishment. Quartile 1 represents staff paid on lower salaries, with Quartile 4 representing the highest paid cohort of employees. Women account for 68% in quartile 4. The total percentage of women across the whole organisation 87% (1), so quartile 4 shows an underrepresentation of women, with quartile 2 being 81% and quartile 3 84%

Table 1

 
Table 2

Table 3

Table 3 above provides a pay band-based representation of the workforce establishment, to adhere to GDPR, headcounts less than 6 are not displayed.

Table 4

 Difference in hourly rates between 5 neighbouring Trusts

As compared to the 5 neighbouring Trusts in the region we rank 2^nd highest for the mean difference in hourly pay rates and at a 16-point variance on this metric. This suggests there is significant work that still needs to be done to improve the mean percentage and reduce the hourly pay gap between men and women.

Bonus Pay

The two tables above provide information on bonus payments to employees and gender, including headcount (table 6) for this reporting period. It can be seen from table 5, that women were paid as a mean average £1160.02 and as a median there was no difference to their male counterparts, pay gaps of 14% and 20% respectively.

Table 5        

Table 6

GPG Action plan.

This plan is to go forward 1^st January 2023 to 31^st December 2024.