Gender Pay Gap report for 2023

Report to: Workforce Committee

Date: 9^TH January 2024

Report of: Chief People Officer

Prepared by: A. Davis

Part I. X

Purpose of Report. For assurance

Executive Summary:

The purpose of this report is to present the findings and recommended actions based on the Gender Pay Gap report for 2023. The gender pay gap for our Trust is below the threshold for immediate action as specified by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and so should be regularly monitored.

In summary it was found that 76% of our workforce is female, with women occupying 77% of the lowest paid jobs and 69% of the highest paid jobs. The median gender pay gap was found to be at 3.2% which is significantly lower than 6.8% reported in 2022, an explanation for the change is as a result of using the national reporting data set produced automatically using a formatted template in the Electronic Staff Record (ESR). The Equality and Human Rights Commission set out in their criteria that where a pay gap is greater than 3% but less than 5% difference, the position should be regularly monitored,

The ability for us as an organisation to take targeted action is limited due to being bound by NHS terms and conditions, the fact that we encourage colleagues to take up flexible working opportunities which then reduces salary levels and the pipeline of newly qualified individuals who are seeking to obtain posts with us such as higher proportion of females wanting a consultant position, higher proportion of males seeking employment in agenda for change caring professions.

This report details the findings analysis and subsequent proposed actions.

It is recommended that the Workforce Committee

Receives and notes the report.
Discuss the results and consider the implications

Trust Strategic Aims and Ambitions supported by this Paper:
Aims

To provide outstanding and sustainable healthcare to our local communities

Ambitions

Great Place To Work
Fit For The Future

INTRODUCTION

From April 2017, gender pay reporting legislation requires employers with 250 or more employees to publish statutory calculations each year showing how large the pay gap is between their male and female employees at the end of March. Employers must publish their gender pay gaps both on their own website as well as a government website.

Gender pay reporting is different to equal pay; equal pay deals with the pay differences between men and women who carry out the same jobs, similar jobs or work of equal value whereas the gender pay gap shows the difference in the average pay between all men and women in a workforce. The Equality Act 2010 sets out that men and women in the same employment, performing equal work, must receive equal pay, it is unlawful to pay people unequally because of gender. If a workforce has a particularly high gender pay gap, this can indicate that there may be a number of issues to deal with, and the six mandated calculations may help to identify what those issues are.

Lancashire Teaching Hospitals as an employer must publish six calculations showing our:

Average gender pay gap as a mean average
Average gender pay gap as a median average
Average bonus gender pay gap as a mean average
Average bonus gender pay gap as a median average
Proportion of males receiving a bonus payment and proportion of females receiving a bonus payment
Proportion of males and females when divided into four groups ordered from lowest to highest pay

The Equality and Human Rights Commission has the power to enforce any failure to comply with the regulations. The Equality and Human Rights Commission states that where there is a difference in pay related to the gender of an employee, the following applies:

Less than 3% difference, no action is necessary,
Greater than 3% but less than 5% difference, the position should be regularly monitored,
Greater than 5% difference, action should be taken to address the issue and close the gap.

The average gender pay median is the figure which will be used as the most accurate indicator of pay to determine if further action is required.

THE WORKFORCE PROFILE

OUR WORKFORCE IS 76% FEMALE AND 24% MALE

Image description for accessbility purposes

The image shows a graph with a title of 'Workforce Gender Split. The x axis has 3 column bars with blue at the bottom and red at the top. The label under each column shows 01-Jan-21, 01-Jan-22 and 01-Jan-23 The key at the bottom shows that the blue represents female and the top represents male. The y axis shows numbers from zero to 12000 in increments of 2000. The first bar has 6478 (female) in the blue part and 2007 (male) in the red (top) part. The second bar has 6618 in the blue part and 2114 in the red (top) part. The third bar has 7798 in the blue part and 2417 in the red part.

Figure 1: Gender profile

The gender profile of our workforce (Figure 1) continues to be predominantly female. The current (31 March 2023) split within the overall workforce remains consistent with the previous four Gender Pay Gap reports: 76% female, 24% male

WOMEN OCCUPY 77% OF THE LOWEST PAID JOBS AND 69% OF THE HIGHEST PAID JOBS

Table 1 – Proportion of females and males when divided into four groups from lowest to highest pay (full-pay relevant employees only)

Quartile	2023		2022		2021
Quartile	No. Male \| Female	% Male \| Female	No. Male \| Female	% Male \| Female	No. Male \| Female	% Male \| Female
1 – Lower	582 \|1968	23% \| 77%	502 \| 1,681	23% \| 77%	467 \| 1,654	22% \| 78%
2 – Lower middle	579 \| 1976	23% \| 77%	494 \| 1,689	23% \| 77%	457 \| 1,665	22% \| 78%
3 – Upper middle	469 \| 2084	18% \| 82%	379 \| 1,804	17% \| 83%	385 \| 1,736	18% \| 82%
4 – Upper	787 \| 1770	31% \| 69%	739 \| 1,444	34% \| 66%	698 \| 1,423	33% \| 67%
Total	2,417 \| 7,798 (10,215 total)	24% \| 76%	2,114 \| 6,618 (8,732 total)	24% \| 76%	2,007 \| 6,478 (8,485 total	24% \| 76%

To determine the proportion of employees in each quartile pay band, the following steps were used:

1) List all employees and sort by hourly rate of pay.

2) Divide the list into four equal quarters.

3) Express the proportion of male and female employees in each quartile band.

When analysing the percentage split of each gender workforce by quartile, it is evident that a greater proportion of the male workforce occupies the upper quartile (31%) compared to the lower quartiles. The female workforce is weighted almost equally across both the lowest quartile (Quartile 1 – 77%) and the highest quartile (Quartile 4 – 69%).

OUR GENDER PAY GAP

	Women’s earnings are:
Mean gender pay gap in hourly pay	21% lower
Median gender pay gap in hourly pay	3.2% lower
Difference in mean bonus payments	45.9% lower
Difference in median bonus payments	0%
Women earn 79p for every £1 earned by Men

Table 3 - Average gender pay gap as a mean average for Trust overall

Mean Hourly Rates	Male	Female	Difference	% Difference
2023	£21.68	£17.13	£4.55	21%
2022	£24.69	£16.87	£7.81	31.7%
2021	£22.14	£16.00	£6.14	27.7%
2020	£21.79	£15.51	£6.29	28.8%
2019	£20.73	£15.11	£5.62	27.1%

Looking at the 2023 figures, male staff members earn on average £4.55 per hour more than female staff, which is a £3.26 decrease on 2022s figures. As a percentage, men earn 21% more than women; a decrease of 10 percentage points from 2022.

Table 4 – Average gender pay gap as a median average for Trust overall

Mean Hourly Rates	Male	Female	Difference	% Difference
2023	£15.92	£15.41	£0.51	3.2%
2022	£15.64	£14.57	£1.07	6.8%
2021	£15.04	£14.02	£1.02	6.8%
2020	£14.45	£13.65	£0.79	5.5%
2019	£14.27	£13.34	£0.93	6.5%

Looking at the 2023 figures, the difference in the median pay for males and females is 3.2%. This is a marked change from 2022 and now falls within the bracket for ‘regular monitoring’.

PROPORTION OF ELIGIBLE MALE AND FEMALE STAFF WHO RECEIVED A BONUS (CEA)

1.15% OF WOMEN AND 7.58% OF MEN WERE PAID A BONUS

The data presented in tables 5, 6 and 7 details the clinical excellence bonuses paid to staff split by gender and provides the mean and median bonuses paid. The data also shows the proportion of males and female overall who received a bonus.

The findings presented indicate a mean bonus pay gap between males and females of 45.9% in 2023, an increase from 34.0% the previous year. Since COVID, the usual CEA application and selection process for medical consultants has been set aside, with all eligible consultants being awarded an equal payment of £2,316.00. This has resulted in no median bonus pay gap in 2023.

Table 5 - Bonus paid as a mean average split by gender

Mean Bonus	Male	Female	Difference	% Difference
2023	£8,534.87	£4,621.28	£3,913.59	45.9%
2022	£10,441.88	£6,888.05	£3,553.83	34.0%
2021	£15,721.28	£3,908.42	£3,908.42	24.09%
2020	£16,134.24	£10,900.69	£5,233.55	32.4%
2019	£16,057.62	£11,625.67	£4,431.95	27.6%

Table 6 - Bonus paid as a median average split by gender

Median Bonus	Male	Female	Difference	% Difference
2023	£2,316	£2,316	£0	0%
2022	£3,816	£3,816	£0	0%
2021	£9,145.29	£6,032.04	£3,113.25	34%
2020	£12,063.96	£6,032.04	£6,031.92	50%
2019	£9,801.99	£5,991.5	£3,810.50	38.9%

Table 7 - Proportion of males receiving a bonus payment and proportion of females receiving a bonus payment

2023	Total head count paid Bonus	Total No. of relevant employees	% paid bonus
Male	230	3035	7.58%
Female	111	9622	1.15%
2022	Total head count paid Bonus	Total No. of relevant employees	% paid bonus
Male	233	2203	10.6%
Female	101	7195	1.4%
2021	Total head count paid Bonus	Total No. of relevant employees	% paid bonus
Male	109	2072	2.3%
Female	31	6926	0.4%

FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS

None

LEGAL IMPLICATIONS

None

RISKS

The gender pay gap is below the threshold for immediate action (as specified by the Equality and Human Rights Commission) however regular monitoring is recommended.

IMPACT ON STAKEHOLDERS

Not applicable

RECOMMENDATIONS

The gender pay gap is 3.2% which means no immediate action is required, however we need to regularly monitor, as specified by the Equality and Human Rights Commission. It is a challenge to identify clear actions to make a tangible difference, as in part our policies and processes (in some cases) work against us achieving a fairer gender pay balance. For example, we actively encourage our colleagues to work flexibly and, aligned to the NHS People Plan, we advertise all our vacancies as having access to flexible working opportunities from day one. Given flexible working is seen as an employee benefit, we want colleagues to take advantage of this, however it may have a negative impact on the gender pay gap, due to the higher proportion of our workforce being female overall and with females tending to work more within part time roles.

Other challenges we face as an organisation is the pipeline of newly qualified candidates coming through degree courses and seeking employment with us. If Universities are unable to attract higher numbers of males into agenda for change professions and higher numbers of females into medical and dental professions then it makes it more challenging for us to be able to alter our gender split and ultimately the gender pay gap.

In spite of this, as an organisation we are seeking to encourage a more diverse pool of candidates to apply for our unregistered professions such as HCA, roles in Estates and Facilities at bands 2 and 3, as this is something we as an organisation can take positive action towards, specifically in the recruitment of a higher proportion of males into more ‘traditionally female’ roles, given the fact that males in our organisation in an agenda for change role earns less than females. We have created a diverse multimedia campaign for HCA roles, where we use staff stories to help illustrate what colleagues enjoy about their work to enable potential candidates of different genders, ages, sexual orientation and ethnic backgrounds to see themselves in our teams.

More widely, actions we are planning on taking which for part of Our People Plan 2023 – 2026 include a refreshed talent management offer to accommodate different development needs, particularly for those colleagues’ bands 8a or above, or for those who have been identified as a rising star over several years but have yet to secure a more senior position for whatever reason. We are also raising the visibility of the different challenges women may face such as via the menopause programme of work, working towards becoming an endometriosis friendly employer, promoting awareness around colleagues who have caring responsibilities alongside their employment to help demonstrate that we are accepting, and accommodating of different needs women may have and how these will hopefully not be a barrier to women seeking career progression within our organisation.