Will mandatory pay audits ensure sexual equality?

A quarter of a century has passed since laws were introduced to ensure men and women are paid equally for doing the same work. Yet, the Equal Opportunities Commission reports that nearly 20 per cent of women are still earning less than men. Is it time to make pay audits mandatory, as recommended by the Equal Pay Taskforce, or will the Government's preferred voluntary approach bring an end to pay inequality? Compiled by Sarah-Jane North

Juris Grinbergs
Group HR director at Littlewoods, member of Equal Pay Taskforce

The voluntary app-roach has so far seen little take up of pay audits and no general move towards looking at ways of closing the gap. It was our (the taskforce's) reluctant view that perhaps mandatory pay audits are now necessary, with the full recognition that such a recommendation would elicit a fairly strong reaction. That is why we went for the two-stage model of introducing mandatory audits, so as to avoid the heavily administrative, cumbersome route.

One of the issues that bedevilled the Taskforce was getting hold of robust market data. But, certainly one suspects that there are sectors where the pay gap is larger than others, in particular those with high levels of part-time and seasonal workers and therefore by definition, high numbers of female employees. Such characteristics suggest that is where a pay gap would be found.

I strongly support employers being proactive on this issue.

As there is currently no mandatory way of auditing, employers have the choice of how they do it. In the Shroders case (in which a female broker successfully claimed discrimination after receiving a smaller bonus than male colleagues), I suspect some sort of high-level assessment of bonus payments in relation to the gender split would have suggested a problem.

Pay auditing doesn't have to be massively bureaucratic and many employers are already doing it as a matter of course.

Susan Anderson
Director of human resources policy, The Confederation of British Industry

The Government's proposals are about tackling the different causes of the gender pay gap - not just unfair discrimination. The CBI believes pay inequality results from the choices women make, careers they choose and the time they spend out of the labour market because of childcare responsibilities. It is more sensible to tackle these issues than to impose ineffective legislation on all employers to curb the discriminatory practices of a few.

We need to give more choices to women trying to balance work with family responsibilities. That means we want better childcare facilities and improved career advice.

Business will play its part in helping to develop a voluntary pay review system. We will seek to make sure it is simple and flexible and can deal with increasingly complex pay systems. We will continue to promote family-friendly working wherever possible.

Nick Page
Adviser on pay, Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development

We support the Government's voluntary approach. We are not convinced that compulsory auditing would have an impact on the equal pay problem. The problem is very complex. On one level this problem is to do with the work that we as a society value, our education system and the way in which we deal with people's aspirations. These issues are at the heart of the problem and you cannot legislate for them.

Some problems are structural in that pay systems may reward more "male-orientated" activities than female activities. Employers can tackle such attitudes themselves. The long-term solution is to change the types of work that we value. But such value judgements are deeply embedded in the national psyche. We believe it is better to raise awareness of the equal pay issue and seek a voluntary approach to it.

Jenny Watson
Deputy chair, Equal Opportunities Commission

Pay discrimination will continue to affect women's pay packets until all employers routinely review their pay systems.

The Equal Pay Task Force's report on pay discrimination was based on evidence gathered from employers and pay specialists and on the findings of a programme of research commissioned by the EOC. A key finding was that while the vast majority of employers were confident, they paid fairly, very few had ever actually done a review to check they were right.

The report focuses on what can be done to raise awareness among employers. It also recommends a change in the law that would require employers to carry out simple checks on their pay systems. The EOC fully endorses the Task Force's proposals. Until legal change requires all employers to confront this issue then many women will still be denied a fair deal at work.

Clara Freeman
Chairman, Opportunity Now (a business in the community campaign for equality)

Our members have always been at the vanguard of fairness for women in the workforce, which is a much broader issue than just pay. Women make up half the potential workforce and at the moment, with low unemployment and the war for talent, it is in the interests of employers to attract people and that means treating men and women fairly.

We back the voluntary approach (to improving equality) and would gladly work with the Government and other bodies to understand the issues that feed into the lack of fair pay, which involves all sorts of things such as recruitment rates, access to training and promotion and the way in which performance appraisals are conducted.

There is legislation in place already, but the good thing about the taskforce report is that it has put the issue at the top of the agenda for business leaders.