The regulations exclude partners in traditional partnerships and limited liability partnerships from the gender pay gap calculations, because partners are not “paid” but instead take a share of the profits, which is not directly comparable with employees’ pay. Partners who fall within the Equality Act 2010’s definition of employment should be included in the employee headcount but not used as part of the calculations. Government does recognise that there are concerns regarding how partners are currently treated within the calculations and is working with stakeholders affected by this to understand the challenges they face and identify any clarifications that might need to be made. There will not be any substantial changes made to the guidance now the reporting year has begun. As with changes to the regulations, it is felt it would be unfair to make these within the reporting year. Government will evaluate altering the guidance regarding partners in future reporting years, for example to introduce a voluntary reporting methodology for partners. If this happens it would be communicated extensively, prior to the start of the reporting year in which it would come into effect.
Commenting on the Government response, Rachel Reeves MP, Chair of the BEIS Committee, said:
"Next year is the 50th anniversary of the Equal Pay Act, and yet still we are tackling issues around fairness in pay. The UK has one of the highest gender pay gaps in Europe. Pay reporting can only be the first step in closing this gap and moving towards genuine equality and diversity in the workplace. The Government’s refusal to extend gender pay gap reporting requirements to partners is disappointing and continues to make a nonsense of efforts to understand the true scale of, and the reasons behind, the gender pay gap in some companies. Failing to accept our report’s recommendation to require businesses to publish an action plan for closing the gap, against which they must report progress each year, suggests the Government are timid in holding businesses to account for their efforts in driving the change needed".
Read the full Government response to the Committee’s report on the Gender Pay gap.
Back to Contents
Gender pay gap reporting – payment in arrears 12 February 2019
The CIPP Advisory service has recently been receiving questions from members regarding payments in arrears for gender pay gap reporting purposes.
There appears to be some confusion around whether to use dates that the employee is paid for or dates when the employee is actually paid.
For clarification, here are some Q & A examples from our Advisory team:
Question We have started using the gender pay gap report supplied to us by our payroll software provider and the payroll run they are using as the ‘relevant pay period’ is different to what we had previously believed we needed to use. For example, we pay some of our employees every month on 19 th , but we pay them a month in arrears (actually on a 4 week/4 week/5 week basis). On 19 th April 2017 they were paid for the period 27 th February to 2 nd April, and we were advised we needed to use this payment to calculate our gender pay data. However the report from our software provider is using the payment made on 19 th May because it is for the period 3 rd April to 30 th April, which includes 5 th April, our snapshot date. Answer The snap shot date refers to the ‘pay period’ in which the employee is paid. This means that any payment made or received after the snapshot date is the data that should be used – not when the monies are earned. In your situation, the payroll of the 19 th April is what should be used.
Question
The Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals
Payroll: need to know
cipp.org.uk
Page 131 of 629
Made with FlippingBook - Online magazine maker