Gender Pay Gap Report 2017

Transcription

1 Gender Pay Gap Report

2 INTRODUCTION At the University of Brighton we are passionate about what we do and we have set out a compelling five year strategy, Practical Wisdom, to ensure we shape our future. This is underpinned by our core values of inclusivity, sustainability, creativity and partnership. It is our commitment to inclusivity which means that we see closing the pay gap between men and women in the University as a key aim for the future. Enabling our staff and liberating talent is a significant strand of Practical Wisdom and this is supported by both our current five year HR Strategy and our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategic plan which is about to be published. In this we identify the actions we will take to address issues of pay inequality more generally. This year s Gender Pay Gap report has revealed that we still have significant work to do but I am confident that the work we have commenced along with an increased awareness of the data will help make gender equality in pay a reality. Professor Debra Humphris Vice Chancellor

3 CONTEXT In 2017, the government introduced new legislation that made it a statutory requirement for organisations with 250 or more employees to report annually on their gender pay gap. As a University, we are covered by the Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties and Public Authorities) Regulations 2017 which came into force on 31 March These regulations underpin the Public Sector Equality Duty and require us to publish our gender pay gap data by 30 March 2018 and then annually thereafter. The purpose of the gender pay gap analysis is to compare the average pay of male and female employees overall within the University. Our analysis includes all of our academic and professional staff, as well as our casual staff, senior managers and professors. This is different to equal pay which considers the pay differences between men and women who carry out the same jobs, similar jobs or work of equal value. It is unlawful to pay people unequally because they are a man or a woman. While this is higher than we would like, we do believe that our structured pay and grading system supports the treatment of work of equal or similar value. However, we will be carrying out an Equal Pay Audit in 2018/19 to confirm that we have don t have any equal pay issues. What we can see though from the quartile banding information, is that there is a disproportionate representation of women in lower graded roles and of men in some senior posts, notably in academic roles. It is this disparity that we want to eliminate by encouraging and supporting women in their career development and across previously male dominated areas such as those academics working in STEM subject areas. The legislation in place dictates the methodology we are required to use to calculate the gender pay gap and all data quoted relates to the snapshot date of 31 March At the University of Brighton, we have a mean gender pay gap of 14.06%. 01

4 GENDER PAY GAP FIGURES The mean and median gender pay gap based on an hourly rate of ordinary pay: Mean gender pay gap 14.06% Median gender pay gap 16.26% Total employees 3799 The mean and median bonus gender pay gap and the proportion of males and females receiving a bonus payment: % 0.13%* Mean gender bonus gap 0% Median gender bonus gap 0% Proportion receiving bonus *0.13% represents three individuals who recieved a bonus payment. The proportion of males and females in each mean hourly rate quartile pay band: % Q % 33.51% Q % 42.62% Q % 53.67% Q % 02

5 CLOSING THE GAP Our commitment to reducing the gender pay gap can be seen by work which has already been undertaken and which we also have planned. ENSURING FAIR PROMOTION OPPORTUNITIES We are currently reviewing our academic promotion process and criteria to ensure that promotion opportunities are available to all and that applications are objectively considered for both male and female academics in the university. This follows on from the work we undertook last year to update our Professorial Promotion criteria and process. We also introduced a new mentoring scheme in 2017 which we hope will allow women to seek support from experienced mentors to enable them to reach their full potential and give them confidence to develop their careers further. PROVIDING DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES Following extensive consultation with our staff, we are about to introduce a revised Staff Development Review process which will be rolled out this year to ensure that all staff are receiving an annual review to help them reach their full potential. For the last three years we have celebrated International Women s Day with events to inspire and develop women. This included a conference in 2016 aimed specifically at supporting women s careers and work is underway to deliver an event this year, showcasing female role models from within, and external to, the University. We have recently negotiated a new workload allocation agreement and are now rolling out an electronic recording system which will provide transparency for our academics to ensure women are receiving equal opportunities and treatment with regard to the time being allocated for both teaching and research activities. LISTENING TO OUR STAFF We regularly seek to understand the experiences of our staff via face to face open meetings and we continually identify different opportunities to gain their feedback to help us improve. We are running our next formal Staff Survey in Spring 2018 which will help us to understand the experiences of women in relation to their work, promotion and development opportunities. This will help us identify new actions we can take to improve the lived reality and perceptions of women at the University. 03

6 REDUCING BIAS, RAISING AWARENESS AND IMPROVING OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN Our commitment to closing the gender pay gap is evidenced through a wide range of strategies, policies and training. For example, we will be refreshing the HR Strategy in 2018 to ensure it remains relevant and helps us to achieve our aim particularly of enabling our staff and liberating talent, and our new Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategic Plan is also being launched shortly. We are currently updating our Recruitment and Selection Policy to strengthen our commitment to ensuring the best candidates are appointed in all instances. We are also launching a new Unconscious Bias e-learning package which will be mandatory for all staff involved in recruitment and promotion, as well as plans for further face to face training to compliment this approach. MONITORING OUR PROGRESS We will be undertaking an Equal Pay Audit during the 2018/19 academic year so that we can improve our understanding of pay issues and to allow us to monitor improvements for the future. We are also seeking to improve the information we provide to enable our managers to understand what is happening in their own areas as well as across the wider organisation. Real time management information will become available to all managers this year allowing a range of demographic information to be more visible. A new equalities monitoring report will be being produced regularly from Spring 2018 to improve understanding at a strategic level and the Equality and Diversity Committee will consider the impact of this. DEMONSTRATING OUR COMMITMENT We have been keen to ensure that equalities is embedded at the very highest level of the University and it is our Vice Chancellor who chairs our Equality and Diversity Committee. All members of the Board of Governors and the University Executive Board have already undertaken training in equalities. It is also a standing item at our University Executive Committee meetings to ensure it becomes integral to our high level decision making processes. All our Schools have their own Equalities Committees too, with a specific focus on gender issues at a School level. 04

7 AWARDS AND RELATED DIVERSITY INITIATIVES The University of Brighton is fully committed to supporting the enhancement of women s careers and as such we are proud to have held an institutional Athena SWAN Bronze Award since Two of our schools also hold Bronze Awards and more will be applying this year. Much of our equalities work spans differing characteristics and we are very conscious that gender equality cannot function in isolation where intersectionality, or overlapping characteristics such as race, class, gender or disability, may cause interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage. As such, currently we are committed to work under the Disability Confident, Race Equality Charter and Stonewall initiatives too. We are equally committed to supporting the careers of all our researchers as evidenced by our ongoing Excellence in HR Award accredited by Vitae. 05

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