It has been impossible to miss the widespread media coverage on the Gender Pay Gap Reporting requirements – the deadline passed on Wednesday night (4 April 2018) for large private and voluntary sector employers (with over 250 employees) to publish their gender pay gap report.
Unsurprisingly, and consistent with what was expected by most commentators, the information published discloses that an overwhelming number of UK companies pay men more on average than women. Using the median pay gap figure, the BBC reports that 78% of companies pay men more than women. To view the full article, click here.
What is interesting is the number of large companies that had failed to submit their pay gap reports by the deadline. At the deadline, it was reported that more than 1,500 companies had failed to comply.
It will remain to be seen whether this non-compliance is a result of the lack of enforcement system in the regulations. A decision not to include specific penalties for failure to comply was criticised in some quarters when the regulations were being consulted on. Having said that, the fact that media scrutiny is already shining a light on this issue may mean that the government’s decision to leave “naming and shaming” to the public will be sufficient to convince companies to comply. There is also the threat of legal action being taken by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission which is bound to be unpalatable to those companies yet to publish their data.
