Page 10 - Gi flipbook April 2018

NEWS | MANAGEMENT

Employers free to exploit

gender pay gap reporting flaws

FLAWS IN THE planning Around 9,000
and execution of the employers have
government’s requirements to report their
for gender pay gap gender pay gap
reporting mean that
employers can submit
fabricated information,
or avoid reporting at all,
according to The Financial
Times.
The government does
not have a definitive list
of the employers that
should report by the April
4 deadline, and is unable
to verify the information
provided by those that
do, owing to the format in
which it requested the data.
All employers with
250 employees or more
are required to report 14
measures of how pay is
distributed among their
male and female employees.
However, the
Government Equalities
Office (GEO), which
manages the portal where
the reports are filed, has
admitted that it does not far more than 9,000 government cannot check the government facing
have a full list of which companies required to the numbers because it higher costs.
employers meet the report their gender pay gap. did not request sufficiently Anthony Horrigan, Chief
threshold, meaning officials Information from the detailed data. Executive at Staffmetrix,
cannot identify if any have more detailed Fame This problem could have a specialist workforce
failed to report. database suggests the been avoided if employers analytics consultancy, said
The GEO estimates there true number of companies had been required to the government could
are about 9,000 employers required to report may be submit an anonymised list end up in a situation
that will have to report their as high as 13,488. The Fame of all employees with their where certain highly paid
gender pay gap. It based its database is compiled by gender and salary, allowing employees might be
estimate on the Business Bureau van Dijk, a Dutch the government to check identifiable despite their
Population Estimate, a business information the reported numbers. names not being included
government database. company. Sean Coyne, Senior with the data.
However, the database The Home Office said Associate at Ashurst, a The government might
is problematic. It excludes the Business Population law firm, said anonymised then face costly requests
some businesses listed Estimate, as the official salary data would be to delete data it held on
in the UK but operating estimate of the total UK permissible under new data individuals, he said.
overseas and it combines business population, was protection regulations. “The Innes Miller, Chief
some businesses that judged to be the most government could, Commercial Officer at
are linked within group appropriate data source to notwithstanding existing Staffmetrix, said another
structures. inform the assessment. and new data protection option might be for
GEO guidelines say that FT analysis has also legislation, have asked employers to outsource
it is “essential” that each revealed that, by the end for this type of data,” Mr reporting to a third party,
entity within a company’s of February, three per cent Coyne said. avoiding extra costs to the
group structure must of employers had reported But payrolls experts taxpayer. Some employers
report separately. As a statistically implausible believe that collecting more have already taken this
result, there could be figures. However, the detailed data could leave approach. ■

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News.indd 5 15/03/2018 14:24