UNITED KINGDOM
A new report shows that gender pay gaps increased at five major United Kingdom Government Departments in 2019.
The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) had the greatest difference in average earnings for men and women.
The report found that while gender pay gaps were lower than the national average at all of the 18 largest Departments, half still paid their female staff 10 per cent less than their male staff.
At the Department for International Trade, the gender pay gap shot up from 2.7 per cent in 2017 to 9.4 per cent in 2018, rising again to 12.9 per cent last year.
At the Foreign Office, the gap increased from 8.2 per cent to 10.1 per cent in a year, but remained lower than the 2017 figure of 11.1 per cent.
Equalities Officer at the FDA union, Victoria Jones said it was unacceptable that the pay gap had increased in some Departments.
“In 2020 we are still not seeing significant progress across the board, and the progress we have seen is simply too slow,” Ms Jones said.
She said Departments must commit to “investing in their pay structures to remove inequality, address the lack of development opportunities for women and create meaningful action plans as a priority”.
Elsewhere, the report showed the pace of change had varied considerably.
The Department for Transport had cut its pay gap considerably since 2016-17, from 22.6 per cent to 13.8 per cent over the two years.
Despite still having the greatest pay gap in 2018-19 at 16.6 per cent, DCMS had made progress since 2017-18, when it was 22.9 per cent.
Under new transparency rules all organisations with more than 250 employees must publish reports on their gender pay gap, which refers to the difference in overall average pay between men and women across all levels of the organisation rather than disparities in pay for specific jobs.
London, 30 January 2020
