We have written to the government highlighting our concerns over proposals for mandatory ethnicity and disability pay group reporting.
In our letter to the Minister for Women and Equalities, Bridget Phillipson MP, we expressed our support for the government’s objective of advancing equality in the workplace. However, reiterating concerns raised in our consultation response of last year, we warned that aspects of the current proposals could produce misleading results and unintended adverse consequences if issues with the methodology remain unaddressed.
Our letter made three key recommendations:
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Ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting should integrate pay gap, workforce and disclosure reporting, instead of calling for separate reports. Pay quarter breakdowns would provide more useful information about pay across an organisation’s pay scale and could encourage organisations to adopt measures aimed at making continuous improvements towards their specific equality goals.
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We strongly caution against the use of league tables, or any other form of direct comparison of organisations’ pay gaps. Organisational comparisons would be unproductive due to variation based on factors such as local demographics and industry, and could lead to unintentional outcomes, such as hiring fewer people with disabilities in order to control a pay gap.
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Employer calculations using categories of less than 50 employees should not be published in the public domain to protect anonymity and prevent data being over-interpreted.
Overall, our letter made clear that, as statisticians, we understand that methodology must be grounded in the real-world application, taking account of how data is collected in practice and ensuring that analysis leads to meaningful improvements, in this case, in workplace equality.
Read the letter in full.
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