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Government Guidance on Ethnicity Pay Reporting

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We updated you in our 2022 Newsletter Issue 2 (here) that the Government had decided not to introduce mandatory ethnicity pay gap reporting.  Instead it is supporting employers with voluntary reporting.  Read on for details…

The Government has recently published guidance for employers (here) on how to measure, report on and address any ethnicity pay differences within their workforce.

The Government has said that the aim of the guidance is to develop a consistent, methodological approach to ethnicity pay reporting, which it hopes will lead to meaningful action. (However, the Government recognises that ethnicity pay reporting is much more complex than gender pay reporting).

The guidance describes an ethnicity pay gap as a measure of the difference between ethnic groups’ average earnings across an organisation or the labour market as a whole over a period of time, regardless of role or seniority. It is not a like-for-like comparison of employees of different ethnicities. Even if an employer has a fair pay and reward policy, and even has equal pay, it could still have a pay gap.

The guidance explains how to report on ethnicity pay and in particular how to:

  • Collect employees’ ethnicity data and gather the required payroll data for ethnicity pay calculations
  • Make ethnicity pay calculations and step by step instructions on how to do them
  • Analyse and understand the results of these calculations, including the underlying causes of any disparities
  • Develop an action plan to address any identified disparities
  • Consider data issues such as confidentiality, aggregating ethnic groups and the location of employees.

The guidance recognises that not all employers want to publish their figures.  However some do want to calculate and report on them internally. It is intended to help employers  by ensuring that all employers follow the same methodology and that figures are comparable.

If you are interested in voluntarily reporting and would like help to do so, our Pay & Reward expert, Jane Baalam can help.

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