“Last chance saloon” for employers to report gender pay gap, EHRC warns
The Equality & Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has warned employers with 250 or more employees that they are entering the “last chance saloon” for reporting their gender pay gap.
Some 5,000 employers have yet to publish the required information – their mean and median pay and bonus gaps, the proportion of men and women that received a bonus and the proportion of men and women in each pay quartile. Public sector employers have to publish this information by 30 March 2018 and private sector employers by 4 April 2018.
The EHRC’s warning comes as it publishes final details of its enforcement strategy which indicates that it will take enforcement action both against employers that have not published pay gap information and against those who submit data that has not been calculated correctly.
What happens if you don’t publish pay gap information?
The EHRC will be writing to all employers who have failed to comply on 9 April, giving them 28 days to do so before an investigation take a place. If the investigation concludes that a private sector employer has breached its legal obligations, the EHRC will issue an unlawful act notice requiring the employer to prepare a draft action plan for approval remedying the breach. If the employer does not comply with an agreed action plan, the EHRC will apply for a court order. If the employer fails without reasonable excuse to comply with the court order, it will commit an offence and may be required to pay an unlimited fine.
The EHRC may at any time offer an employer the opportunity to enter into an agreement to comply, instead of further enforcement action. If the employer does not comply with the agreement, the EHRC will seek a court order. If the employer fails without reasonable excuse to comply with a court order, it will commit an offence and could be required to pay an unlimited fine.
Similar enforcement action will be taken against public sector employers.
If you need any help with preparing your gender pay gap information, please get in touch.
Posted by Louise Donaldson
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