'Much more needs to be done' about reporting gender and ethnic pay, MPs warn

69 per cent of MPs believe the new reporting requirements on gender, ethnicity and executive pay is a ‘good start’ but not enough, according to a recent YouGov poll.

Commissioned by the Association of Accounting Technicians (AAT), the report revealed that almost a quarter of MPs strongly agreed with this concept, while a further 46 per cent agreed – leaving only 13 per cent who either disagreed or strongly disagreed.

Reporting requirements on gender pay gap was introduced by the government last year, obliging all employers with over 250 employees to publish figures comparing men and women’s hourly and bonus pay across the workforce. For the first time, UK-listed companies had to disclose the difference between their chief executive’s salary and their average UK worker; the ‘pay ratio.’ Figures from the first reporting in 2018 revealed a significantly high amount of organisations (78 per cent) have a pay gap which favours men.

Following on from the reporting of gender pay gap in the workplace, the government recently finished consulting on a new directive that requires organisations with more than 250 employees to report on their ethnicity pay gap data as well. The consultation closed on the 11th January, and further details on the outcome are expected soon.

Phil Hall, head of public affairs and public policy at accountancy body AAT, explained that he also wants to include firms that employ more than 50 people, as ‘companies employing more than 250 employees account for a mere 1% of UK businesses.’

The CIPD responded to the consultation and recommended that ethnicity pay gap reporting be based on the same pay quartiles that were used for gender pay gap reporting, and include a pay gap figure ‘comparing average hourly earning of ethnic minority employees as a percentage of white employees’.

A recent Equality and Human Rights Commission (HERC) report revealed more than half (51 per cent) of employers felt they faced barrier when it came to collecting ethnicity data, meaning they would face problems calculating their pay gap data.

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