Jackson Boyd has previously reported on the introduction of Gender Pay Gap reporting, which at present only companies with more than 250 employees have to comply with.
The first tranche of Pay Gap reports revealed that some of the UK’s largest employers such as Ryanair, JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch, EasyJet and Specsavers all had gender pay gaps of over 40%, which highlights that there is still some way to go before there is true pay parity in the UK.
The Government’s Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee (BEIS) are of the view that the current limitation of Pay Gap reporting to businesses with over 250 employees does not go far enough to highlight the gaps in pay between men and women. They believe that the duty to report should be extended to all companies employing over 50 people by 2020, as the current limits result in over 50% of the workforce in the UK in the dark about the pay gap in their place of work.
The BEIS have also criticised the Government’s failure to clarify the sanctions that will be levied on companies that do not comply and also failing to pursue sanctions against non-compliant employers.
Given that the introduction of Gender Pay Gap reporting is still recent, it perhaps not surprising that the enforcement regime is yet to be clarified and Jackson Boyd will keep up to date with any developments in this.