GLOBAL PAYROLL MAGAZINE
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Ethnic and disability pay reporting and equal pay: Labour The draft Equality (Race and Disability) Bill aims to tackle inequality for ethnic minority and disabled people by: Enshrining in law the full right to equal pay for ethnic minorities and disabled people, making it much easier for them to bring unequal pay claims. Claimants currently face significant barriers when bringing pay discrimination claims on the grounds of ethnicity or disability. Enshrining in law the full right to equal pay for ethnic minorities as well as disabled people will make it easier for them to bring forward equal pay claims where they have been underpaid. Introducing mandatory ethnicity and disability pay reporting for larger employers (those with 250+ employees) to help close the ethnicity and disability pay gaps. Surfacing pay gaps will enable companies to constructively consider why they exist and how to tackle them. The mandatory ethnicity and disability pay reporting for larger employers has been mooted for at least 5 years and while this is more complicated to report on than gender pay, it has been the subject of significant research and thought to allow meaningful legislation to be developed and acted on. A number of large employers already voluntarily report on one or both of these pay gaps. The purpose
of pay reporting is to allow employers to analyse their own data to establish where there are perceived inequalities and if so why, and how, these can be improved on. The data can then be analysed by reference to national, regional and sectoral factors to provide helpful context. For example, on analysing gender pay reporting, employers were able to see where bottlenecks occurred in their gender distribution and focus on access to better training and promotion criteria to loosen them. There is ample data which demonstrates the existence of pay disparities not just based on gender but based on ethnic origin. Often the cause will have derived from unconscious bias, but it is also driven by a lack of equality of opportunity at all levels. For example, the ONS reported that in 2022 “ Black, African, Caribbean or Black British employees earned less (£13.53) median gross hourly pay than White employees (£14.35), which has been consistent since 2012 ”; “ Country of birth had an impact on how much employees earned: UK-born Black, African, Caribbean or Black British employees earned more (£15.18), while non-UK- born Black British employees earned less (£12.95) when compared with UK- born White employees (£14.26) .” Compulsory disability pay gap reporting for large employers may initially be challenging since not all employees, not uniquely to this protected characteristic I might add but more commonly, do not want
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