South Wales Fire Service has reported that the organisation’s gender pay gap has widened slightly over the last year – according to a report discussed by the Fire Authority’s HR & Equalities Committee yesterday (pdf – p9).
The gender pay gap – which measures the average difference in earnings between men and women in an organisation as a whole – is different from equal pay (men and women being paid the same for the same work).
All businesses and organisations that employ more than 250 people need to report on their gender pay gap annually.
The mean average hourly pay gap in 2021 resulted in male employees being paid 15.33% more than female employees compared to a 14.59% gap in 2020.
The gap is much larger (27.8%) amongst the lowest pay grades. One of the main explanations for the pay gap is that proportionally more women are employed in lower-paid part-time roles. Other reasons include different terms and conditions at different pay grades and the use of salary sacrifice schemes (i.e childcare vouchers, car leasing).
Some of the measures the fire service are taking to cut the pay gap include mixed-gender recruitment panels, “blind” application forms (where identifying characteristics are removed), training on unconscious bias and flexible working.
In a separate item (pdf – p105), the committee was told that despite an increase in the number of women being recruited as full-time firefighters (8 in 2020-21 compared to just 2 in 2016-17) the vast majority (86 in 2020-21) were men.
