The gender pay gap obligations have been introduced alongside the existing requirements for specified public bodies, including publishing annual information to demonstrate compliance under the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) and publishing equality objectives every four years.
The Mandatory Gender Pay Gap Reporting proposes that public sector organisations should capture data as a snapshot on 31 March and then publish their findings no later than 31 March of the following year. It is similarly required that the data is maintained for three years in order to show progress made. The council is publishing its data for each year from 2017.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission defines the difference between equal pay and the gender pay gap as follows:
- equal pay means that men and women in the same employment performing equal work must receive equal pay, as set out in the Equality Act 2010
- the gender pay gap is a measure of the difference between men’s and women’s average earnings across an organisation or the labour market. It is expressed as a percentage of men’s earnings
Salaries at TMBC are determined through a grading system which evaluates the job and not the post holder. It makes no reference to gender or any other personal characteristics of existing or potential job holders. Therefore, we are confident that TMBC is paying the same salary to roles of equal value.