Transparency data

Companies House gender pay gap report 2020

Published 15 December 2020

1. Introduction

Companies House is fully committed to ensuring the fair treatment and reward of all staff irrespective of gender, as well as, any other diversity characteristic such as age, ethnicity, religion and/or belief, sexual orientation and disability status.

The promotion of equality and inclusivity is at the heart of everything we do, and we are proud of the progress that we have made and are continuing to make.

Evidence of this includes:

• an even balance of genders at the very top of the organisation
• a reinvigorated women’s network
• a development programme for women
• special attention to recruiting and retaining women in our digital area
• being shortlisted for the ‘FairPlay Employer’ award at the Womenspire Awards

We recognise that there’s more work to do to close our gender pay gap and further improve diversity and inclusivity within the organisation. An extensive series of measures have been undertaken and future plans are set out in section 5 - Other measures to close the gender pay gap.

2. Definition

The gender pay gap is an equality measure that shows the difference in average earnings between women and men. It does not show the difference in pay for comparable jobs.

It’s different to equal pay which deals with the pay differences between men and women who carry out the same jobs, similar jobs or work of equal value.

In line with public sector regulations, the data in this report is based on a snapshot date of 31 March 2020. For bonuses, the period used was 1 April 2019 to 31 March 2020, which was the 12 months preceding the snapshot date.

3. Gender pay gap data

The gender pay gap for Companies House for 2020 is:

Mean pay gap of 13.6%

Median pay gap of 20.4%

Mean is the average in the data set, and median is the middle number in the data set. Although our mean pay gap is lower than across the UK economy of 16.2%, our median pay gap is higher than across the UK economy 17.3%.

Our commitment to gender equality comes from the top of the organisation. Three of our six most senior employees (Senior Civil Servants) are women including the Chief Executive.

These and other women in senior roles in Companies House provide visible role models for other women in the organisation, which supplements many of the initiatives in place to improve our position.

The following table shows the number of male and female employees in Companies House in each quartile.

Quartile	Female %	Male %
Lower quartile	69.8%	30.2%
Lower middle quartile	62.8%	37.2%
Upper middle quartile	50.8%	49.2%
Upper quartile	39.1%	60.9%

The pay gap is largely driven by an uneven gender split by grade especially the significant number of women employed in the Band B (Administrative Officer) grade. This results in a higher proportion of female employees in the lower and lower middle quartile.

We’ve carried out research into why there is a lack of progression to higher roles from women in Band B roles. Feedback has been that:

• there are perceptions by some Band B staff around part time work limiting opportunities for promotion
• a lack of confidence or a perceived unlikelihood of success, preventing them applying for promotion
• the potential loss of government paid benefits incurred following promotion, acting as a deterrent to applying

Following this research, we’ll put measures in place focussing on demonstrating that working part time (or other flexible working patterns) should not be a barrier to progressing through the organisation.

From April 2020 our new approach to performance management, with a focus on continued good quality developmental conversations between staff and their managers will enable everyone (including part time staff) to feel supported and flourish within the organisation.

4. Bonus awards

Companies House operates reward and recognition schemes along with a Corporate Efficiency Award which is conditional on the organisation meeting challenging efficiency targets. These awards all operate irrespective of gender.

The proportion of male and female employees receiving one of the above performance awards in the 12 months ending 31 March 2020 is:

Female	85.4%
Male	84.5%

The bonus awards pay gap is:

Mean bonus pay gap of 19.7%

Median bonus pay gap of 18.8%

A higher proportion of females received awards than males, but males received on average higher value awards. As the size of the performance award is a percentage of their pay, the bonus pay gap is due to higher mean/median pay of men.

5. Other measures to close the gender pay gap

We’ve already gone a long way in creating a family friendly organisation and will continue to build on actions and initiatives to reduce the gender pay gap. These include:

• support for women returning following a career break
• flexible working patterns to help with childcare
• home working
• shared parental leave
• a subsidised play scheme

We’re committed to continuous improvement of our recruitment processes to reduce the potential for unconscious bias. As part of our commitment to a diverse and inclusive workforce the process is anonymous meaning application sifters are unaware of a candidate’s personal details which protects against bias.

Companies House has been working with Chwarae Teg (the leading gender equality charity in Wales), to promote gender equality and support our Women’s Network.

The following activities have taken place:

A development programme, to ‘develop confidence and aspirations of women in Companies House’, containing 4 modules run by Chwarae Teg trainers and Women’s Network members, which promotes our coaching and mentoring schemes. Modules included:

• Discover and define your personal brand
• Change your thinking - get results
• Speak up and stand out
• Own your career - plan for success

Companies House was shortlisted for the ‘FairPlay Employer’ award at the Womenspire Awards in July 2019.

Chwarae Teg has also created a case study of the work that Companies House has done as a FairPlay Employer.

Twenty-nine women from Companies House attended the Women into Leadership conference in Cardiff in February 2020. Passionate about sharing their learning, women that attended last year’s conference set up a series of ‘Tackling Imposter Syndrome’ workshops followed by a cross government event hosted by Companies House.

We continue to raise awareness of International Women’s Day and celebrate each year with inspirational speakers.

Our CEO was featured on International Women’s day talking about her own experience as a leader in national media publications.

We’re focussing on recruiting and retaining women in Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT):

• commissioning Chwarae Teg to produce a report on our recruitment practices and how we can improve the attraction of women in DDaT roles
• Chwarae Teg has run 2 focus groups within the DDaT teams to understand the perceptions of men in relation to gender equality and how they can become better allies
• membership of the Government Digital Careers Alliance - a cross government group that looks to share best practice and work together to improve diversity, in particular, women, within STEM, working with groups like Technocamps who look at encouraging girls into STEM
• employer branding work including social media comms and visuals, videos etc that feature women and a diverse group of employees in all roles, Digital Open Day showcasing females in key roles
• blogs, vlogs etc from women in roles such as digital apprenticeships
• putting in place mentorship, coaching arrangements

This year the Women’s Network has built on the successes of previous years in the following way:

Strengthened Network

Over 90 active members. Successfully attracted operational colleagues to the Network (a key priority for last year) and increased diversity of grades/professions; truly giving a voice to the largest cohort of staff.

Adaptability

Our Network has evolved. Rather than focusing exclusively on strategic change a social safe space has been created for women to raise issues important to them.

Intersectionality

Collaborating across networks. For example, recognising many women are carers and joining up women’s and carers’ networks. This has led to improvements for working parents and the introduction of a Workplace Adjustment Passport for all - designed to encourage open, honest conversations with managers and ‘bring your whole self to work’.

Confidence building

Collaboration with Chwarae Teg to design and deliver a development/confidence-building programme for women.

Smarter working

The Network has supported transformation and culture change embedding Smarter Working principles across the organisation - giving all staff the ability to work even more flexibly.

Gender lensing

‘Gender lensed’ recruitment activities and processes to maximise participation from women, in line with our public target to increase job applications from underrepresented groups by 10%.

Male allies

Worked with Chwarae Teg to deliver focus groups in our digital directorate to understand perceptions of men in relation to gender equality and consider how they can become better allies.

Senior Leaders’ Forum

The Network hosted the Chwarae Teg Senior Leaders’ Forum - testament to the commitment to diversity of our Chief Executive and team.

Fairplay journey

Having gained our silver award, we have continued with a second year of Fairplay membership, continually improving in line with our action plan, and are about to embark on our third year.

The following case study sets out the positive impact of the Women’s Network has had on one individual, and how through the network she was able to influence HR/pay approaches.

Case study

I’m a single parent, and regularly struggle with juggling a work-life balance and facing hurdles along the way. I take my daughter to school and pick her up each day, which means my flexibility can be limited to school hours - though I sometimes use breakfast club and after school club to help.

Companies House has always been a brilliant place to work for being supportive and having family friendly policies. But no matter how supportive an organisation is, it can still sometimes feel isolated when you’re a single parent.

I heard about the Women’s Network from my colleague, who said they were asking for new people to join the network and attend the meetings. If I’m being honest, I didn’t really know the extent of the Women’s Network, so I attended my first meeting last September and felt a little nervous about what to expect.

I didn’t need to worry. In that very first meeting, I felt very welcome, I was encouraged to raise any topics for discussion and I felt comfortable suggesting ideas and letting others know about issues I personally faced.

In particular, I spoke about being a working single mum. There was a lot of feedback in the meeting and afterwards that many others were feeling exactly the same and struggling with some of the same issues.

Since this, there has been a link up with the Carer’s Network and a sub-group looking at a ‘working parent network’ as it affects both mums and dads.

I remember feeling how supportive the network was and that just speaking about these things with other women facing similar challenges really helped me.

In the Women’s Network meeting in November, HR came to talk about the gender pay gap. It was interesting to hear that although Companies House has good gender diversity generally, the gender pay gap is still quite large in favour of men.

HR explained that this was due to a number of reasons, but one big reason is that there are more women in lower grade operational roles, often working part-time. Companies House wanted to run focus groups to find out why some women feel they cannot progress.

A few other things have changed for me since joining the network.

I’ve been given the best opportunity to trial Smarter Ways of Working, which means I have a mobile device and can work remotely. This will help when I have to collect my daughter from school and have to finish early - but on the odd occasion I could do a couple of hours of work later on when my daughter is settled. It will give me more flexibility and help me to keep on top of my work.

I’ve also attended some of the women’s network training modules that have been run by Chwarae Teg, which has helped with my confidence and made me think I could progress in the future.

I would love others to come along to women’s network meetings because you never know how you’re feeling about certain issues. There’s always someone in these meetings to listen, to get together to talk and think of solutions.

6. Summary

Companies House is fully committed to ensuring the fair treatment and reward of all staff irrespective of gender or any other protected characteristic.

This report highlights our progress made to date. We intend to continue this progress and put in place new measures that will allow all our staff to feel supported and to flourish within the organisation.

While these measures will be comprehensive, it’s worth noting that the gender pay gap is a complex societal issue that will take time to address.

However, while there are no quick and easy solutions that will allow us to quickly address the gender pay gap in Companies House, this will not deter our ambition to close our gap and to be more inclusive, more diverse and an organisation that people want to work for.