Transparency data

BPDTS Ltd's gender pay gap report 2017

Published 19 December 2017

At BPDTS we value diversity and are committed to equality within our workforce. We want BPDTS to be a place where everyone is valued, respected, treated fairly and with dignity.

Reference to the legislation

BPDTS welcomes the Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties and Public Authorities) legislation introduced in April 2017 by the Government Equalities Office requiring UK organisations with 250 or more employees to annually publish their gender pay gap. These figures are calculated using the salary data of all employees in scope of the calculations set out in the legislation on the snapshot date of 31 March 2017.

The gender pay gap shows a measure of the difference between men’s and women’s average pay across an organisation irrespective of their role or seniority. This is different from equal pay which is about ensuring that men and women in the same employment performing equal work must be paid equally.

BPDTS Ltd promotes the fair treatment of all employees in its pay and reward strategy. We have also published these mandatory figures on the Government Equality Office’s designated gender pay gap reporting website.

Organisational context

BPDTS are a specialist technology organisation, we are aware that the gender pay gap in the technology sector is 25% higher than the UK average of 18.1%. Our focus in BPDTS is how we encourage more women into the technology industry, we value diversity and are committed to equality within our workforce. We want BPDTS to be a place where everyone is valued, respected, treated fairly and with dignity. We:

• understand that different people bring different perspectives, knowledge and ideas, vital to a successful business
• will provide equality of opportunity and will not tolerate discrimination
• will deliver services which embrace diversity and equality, treating customers and each other with respect

These commitments are reinforced by our values and are embedded in our day to day working.

Between December 2016 and March 2017, 380 employees joined us as part of our initial set up through Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations (TUPE) Transfer. The organisation structure at the time of this report and also the data provided is based on limited information as the bulk of people joined us on 25 March 2017 this report is therefore based on one week’s salary for the majority of employees in BPDTS and there were no bonus payments made during this period.

Organisation structure

The efficiency and effectiveness of the services we provide to DWP Digital are our key focus at BPDTS; therefore as part of our organisational development we are transforming our organisation to be structured around these services. These include data and analytics, infrastructure, architecture, product design, product development, 24/7 operations, engineering and quality assurance services.

As part of this we have also introduced communities of practice by service area, this is a group of employees with similar or closely-related skills, experience and job responsibilities which helps them to more easily collaborate and share ideas so they can become more expert in roles.

Each practice will consist of one or more job families with each branching into a set of job roles. Job roles are specific types of work with a specific set of skills, knowledge, qualification/accreditation requirements which are recognizable across UK central government.

The introduction of communities of practice will allow us to continue to build and develop capability and professions within BPDTS to help everyone to become even better at what they do, and maximise the potential of all employees across our organisation by focusing on their development at both a personal and team level.

Unlike the majority of the public sector, BPDTS does not operate within a grade structure. For our external recruitment, we will use market based intelligence to set salaries based on the wider labour market values for the digital and technology sector. As a public sector organisation we are governed by HM Treasury’s pay remit, therefore, we are subject to current public sector pay policy and pay restrictions.

Gender pay gap data

DWP gender composition

The gender composition of BPDTS’s workforce, that were in scope of the calculation, shows significantly more male (80.8%) than female (19.2%) employees.

Gender pay gap

At 2.3%, the mean gender pay gap of BPDTS is significantly smaller when compared with the wider Civil Service mean gender pay gap of 10.6% as published by the Office for National Statistics in March 2017 and also in comparison to other digital and technology companies.

BPDTS has a negative median gender pay gap, at -5.5%. Whilst this represents a positive reflection of the female salaries, we are conscious this only represents one week of data and the fuller picture will be reported in next year’s return.

We are basing this largely on one week’s data and solely on terms and conditions of TUPE transferees.

Bonus pay gap

BPDTS paid no bonuses during the period outlined and as such there is no information for this return.

Pay by quartiles and gender composition of BPDTS

The table below shows a relatively even split of women across the quartiles. There are 14.74% in the lower quartile and 15.79% in the upper quartile.

Quartiles	Female %	Male %
Lower quartile	14.74%	85.26%
Lower middle quartile	21.05%	78.95%
Upper middle quartile	25.26%	74.74%
Upper quartile	15.79%	84.21%

The key issue for BPDTS is to focus on increasing gender representation across the organisation, which is aligned with issues for the wider digital and technology sector.

Explaining the causes of BPDTS’s gender pay gap and taking action to close the gap

Although our gender pay gap is significantly lower than the average for the technology sector BPDTS strive to there being no pay gap between genders. Given our data is largely based on one week’s salary payment our analysis overall illustrates that BPDTS’ gender pay gap is more rooted in the representational issues at all levels within the organisation and sector. The technology sector faces a shared challenge to encourage and inspire more women into the industry at the start of their careers and to encourage more women to progress into highly paid specialist areas. BPDTS are already working closely with colleagues across DWP Digital to promote, build and further develop initiatives and programmes to increase female representation across the 2 organisations to increase representation and further narrow the gender pay gap.

These include but are not limited to:

1. Recruitment and developing a diverse workforce

When it comes to our recruitment strategy, BPDTS has started to take steps to continuously improve how we attract females into the organisation.

1.1. BPDTS have implemented anonymous recruitment, with the aim to eliminate unconscious bias from the early stages of our recruitment process.

1.2. It is mandatory within BPDTS that selection panel members have completed training for unconscious bias and interviewer skills to ensure our policies and processes are adhered to.

1.3. Our selection guidance promotes the importance of using gender-neutral language in job adverts and inclusive language in all communications to gain the attention and interest of diverse applicants.

1.4. We are currently developing our competency/behaviour framework and will be focusing on ensuring gender-neutral language within this.

1.5. To challenge gender stereotypes in the digital and technology profession, and tackle occupational segregation in roles traditionally dominated by men, we will be developing an employee value proposition using market intelligence to engage and attract female candidates. We have also been linking to and showcasing the important roles and contributions of our female digital specialists in DWP’s Digital Careers website.

1.6. BPDTS has an inclusive approach to internal progression, all roles are advertised whether permanent or temporary and selection is based on skills relevant to the role.

2. Career paths

2.1. BPDTS employees have access to a number of staff networks, including through their close links with DWP Digital to support them throughout their careers. Those specifically focused on supporting women in their careers and progressions include Women in Technology. These gender-related networks are continuously promoted.

3. Promoting a family friendly BPDTS

3.1. We at BPDTS actively promote flexible, job-sharing and part-time working to support employees with caring responsibilities and encourage a good work-life balance. Awareness and support of those with caring responsibilities is embedded into all of our HR policies.

3.2. In order to provide parents with more flexibility in how to share time off work after their child is born or placed for adoption we encourage and support a shared parental leave policy that exceeds statutory provisions.

Action plan

Actions that will be taken to tackle our gender pay gap will be embedded in BPDTS’s Diversity and Inclusion action plan.

Declaration

We confirm that data reported by BPDTS is accurate and has been calculated according to the requirements and methodology set out in the Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties and Public Authorities) Regulations 2017.

BPDTS CEO: Ray Long
Head of HR: Jess Townsley