Nottinghamshire County Council aims to drive down gender pay gap

The authority has published new data revealing the average difference between the earnings of its male and female staff.

It shows on average, women’s earnings are 8.4 per cent lower in the hourly rate as at March 2021.

But this has decreased since data was first recorded in 2017, when the gender pay gap stood at 12.3 per cent. In 2019 the mean average was 9.3 per cent.

This means that there are more men employed with senior, high paid roles than women.

The mean average is calculated by adding together the salaries of every member of staff and dividing the result by the number of staff who work for the authority.

However, the figure does not take into account any disparities in gender balance in some job sectors – such as health and social care roles attracting predominantly female applicants.

The council’s head of human resources,Gill Elder said during a recent personnel committee meeting: “Slow, steady, incremental progress is actually a good place for this council to be.

“There are a number of additional factors that create the gender pay gap for this organisation.

“We are a predominantly female organisation with over 70 per cent of our workforce being female.

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“There are still significant numbers of those female employees who work part-time in lower paid roles.

“The pandemic has also had an impact on turnover and indeed the challenges we face in particular areas regarding recruitment and retention.”

Council documents show in the last 20 months, there has been a need for increased recruitment in key areas including adult social care – where the majority of recruits are female.

Committee chairman, councillor Gordon Wheeler added: “We’re not stopping, we are going to work harder, if that’s possible, to drive down that gap.

“We want people to work for us, we are a fabulous employer to work for.”

Coun Jonathan Wheeler added: “I want to reinforce the great work that Jill and the team are doing in terms of trying to make sure that everyone across the council knows that their gender isn’t a barrier.

“Anyone is welcome to join the authority no matter their gender or background.”

There is a requirement for employers of more than 250 employees to report their gender pay gap.

Councillors unanimously approved the recommendation to publish the gender pay gap data on the authority’s website.