The Equality and Human rights Commission (EHRC) has announced that they will delay commencing enforcement action against employers who have not yet published their data for the reporting year 2019/20. However, the PDA say employers should not wait until they risk enforcement before publishing this information and they should publish as soon as possible, preferably by their ususal date.
Since 2017 employers, with a headcount of 250 or more, must comply with regulations on gender pay gap reporting and publish their information by either 30 March (for most public sector employers) or 4 April (for private sector employers) of the following year.
Businesses must report on a wide range of regulations/requirements, but gender pay gap reporting is the only one that has been suspended. Enforcement action was suspended in March 2020 due to the pandemic and the EHRC have now given employers until 5 October 2021 to publish their the 2019/20 report.
Naina Chotai, President of NAWP, said: “Singling out equality reporting as something that can be delayed gives the message that equality is not as important as other workplace issues. We disagree. Equality isn’t an optional extra, it should be at the core of how organisations work”.
While current equality pay gap reporting is limited to gender, the PDA have called for ethnicity pay gap reporting to also become a requirement. By measuring and reporting differences in how those with different characteristics are rewarded at work, employers can often identify the structural inequalities that shape reward or influence career progression. Employers can then take action to remove those barriers to equality.
The NAWP President added “Efforts to remove inequality from the workplace should always be a priority and employers should not delay publishing their reports along with any plans they have to improve equality”.
In related news, the Trade Union Congress, Mother Pukka and Grazia magazine have launched a petition calling on the government not to suspend the requirement on businesses to report on their gender pay gap, and instead request that they maintain this vital tool for equality and expand it to include ethnicity and disability pay gap data: www.megaphone.org.uk/petitions/reinstate-gender-pay-gap-reporting