United Kingdom
Is there any existing legal requirement to report on any gender pay gap?
Yes.
Mandatory gender pay gap reporting for large private and voluntary sector employers under the Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017 (“GPG Regulations”) came into force on 6 April 2017 (separate Regulations apply to large public sector employers).
The GPG Regulations are applicable in Great Britain. In Northern Ireland, the Employment (NI) Act 2016 provides for a gender pay gap regime to be introduced. There are likely to be some differences with Great Britain, including that information on ethnicity and disability will form part of the regime.
If so, what are the requirement triggers?
The GPG Regulations apply to any "relevant employer", which is a private or voluntary sector employer with 250 or more employees on the "snapshot date" of 5 April in the relevant year.
What frequency of reporting is required?
Employers within the scope of the GPG Regulations must analyse their gender pay gap each April. A gender pay gap report and an accompanying written statement of accuracy must be published within 12 months. Thereafter, employers must produce and publish an annual report.
Is the report required to be published externally?
Yes.
The report must be published on the employer’s own website and it must be kept online and publicly available for three years. Employers must also upload the information to a government website.
Is there a sanction for non-compliance with the duty to report?
The GPG Regulations do not contain any enforcement mechanism, or any sanctions for failing to comply with the reporting obligations or for publishing inaccurate or misleading reports. However, the government periodically checks to assess for non-compliance, produces tables by sector of employers' reported gender pay gap and non-compliant employers can be named on the Equality and Human Rights Commission website. There are therefore commercial and reputational risks of non-compliance.
Has the UK yet fully transposed the requirements of the Pay Transparency Directive? If yes, what was the implementation date and what is the name of the legislation?
The UK has left the EU and the transition period has ended. It is not therefore required to transpose into UK law the requirements of the EU Pay Transparency Directive.
Nonetheless, the UK government has pledged to “go further and faster” to close the gender pay gap “once and for all” and changes to the current UK position are therefore anticipated. Included in the government’s manifesto commitments are plans to require employers to implement action plans to close gender pay gaps, to include outsourced workers in pay gap and pay ratio reporting, and to prevent the outsourcing of services “defeating” equal pay obligations. In addition, with a Draft Equality (Race and Disability) Bill, it is proposed to mirror the existing legislation relating to equal pay and gender pay reporting to introduce mandatory ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting for employers with 250 employees or more and to enshrine in law the full right to equal pay for ethnic minorities and disabled people.
If the Pay Transparency Directive has not yet been transposed, what steps have been taken towards implementation?
N/A. See question 6 above.
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