Transparency data

DCMS gender pay gap - 2017/18 report

Published 19 December 2018

Gender pay gap report for the year 2017-2018

Background

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) has prepared this report as part of the legal requirement for public authorities to publish their gender pay gap on an annual basis.

Last year, the Government introduced world-leading legislation that made it statutory for organisations with 250 or more employees to report annually on their gender pay gap. Government departments are covered by the Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties and Public Authorities) Regulations 2017, which came into force on 31 March 2017. These regulations underpin the Public Sector Equality Duty and require the relevant organisations to publish their gender pay gap data by 30 March 2018 [and then annually], including mean and median gender pay gaps; the mean and median gender bonus gaps; the proportion of men and women who received bonuses; and the proportions of male and female employees in each pay quartile.

The gender pay gap shows the difference in the average pay between all men and women in a workforce. If a workforce has a particularly high gender pay gap, this can indicate there may be a number of issues to deal with, and the individual calculations may help to identify what those issues are.

The gender pay gap is different to equal pay. Equal pay is a statutory requirement for employers rendering it unlawful to pay men and women different salaries, who carry out the same jobs, similar jobs or work of equal value.

This report fulfils the Department’s reporting requirements, analyses the figures in more detail and sets out what we are doing to close the gender pay gap in the organisation.

Building a diverse and inclusive workforce that reflects the people we serve is one of the Civil Service’s top workforce priorities. Our collective aim is to make the Civil Service the UK’s most inclusive employer by 2020. Our Diversity & Inclusion Strategy outlines how we plan to achieve this. The Civil Service should create opportunities for all in a truly meritocratic way and reward all civil servants fairly, regardless of gender, ethnicity or any other personal characteristic.

Headline gender pay gap figures

The mean gender pay gap is 7.50% and the median gender pay gap is 22.90%. This has increased from the figures reported in 2017^{[footnote 1]}. The wider Civil Service gender pay gap is 9.8% and 12.2% for mean and median respectively, published by the ONS in August 2018; it should be noted that these were calculated using a different methodology^{[footnote 2]}. Whilst DCMS’ mean gender pay gap is more favourable than the mean Civil Service gap, our median is greater.

Organisational context

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) as a public sector employer, is bound by the Equality Act 2010. The Act’s public sector equality duty came into force in 2011 and requires all bodies exercising public functions to:

• eliminate discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct that is prohibited by or under this Act;
• advance equality of opportunity between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it; and
• foster good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it.

The DCMS Diversity and Inclusion Plan, which was launched in 2016 and is regularly refreshed, strives for the department to champion diversity and be as inclusive as possible. In order to do this, we have built in mechanisms to identify talent from all backgrounds and support our talent to succeed. We take this approach to all staff, regardless of gender or any protected characteristic, by removing barriers to ensure that diverse or underrepresented groups have equal opportunities to succeed.

As part of our Diversity and Inclusion Strategy, DCMS is committed to ensuring recruitment and pay decisions are fair and consistent across the department. Where we have an increasing amount of specialist roles in the department, we look to align our pay with other government departments to ensure we do not disadvantage individuals with protected characteristics as a result.

DCMS is committed to reducing the gender pay gap, and our approach to pay and bonuses seeks to reward all staff fairly, regardless of gender.

Executive Summary

Since the last gender pay gap report, the number of employees working for DCMS grew by 35.2% over the 2017-18 financial year, from 656 (602 in scope for calculation) to 887 (840 in scope for calculation)^{[footnote 3]}. Of those in scope, the number of women in our overall workforce rose from 315 to 438, a rise of 39.1%, and men from 287 to 402, a rise of 40.1%.

The overall gender pay gap in DCMS has increased since 2017 and appears to have risen dramatically on the median measure from 8% to 23% and substantially on the mean measure from 3% to 7.5%.

However, as demonstrated in the table below there are some significant observations that should be noted:

• For Grades A to D, below the Senior Civil Service, who make up 82% of DCMS staff overall, there are negligible gender pay gaps on all measures.
• For the remaining staff below the Senior Civil Service, Grade A(U), who make up 10% of DCMS staff, there is a pay gap of less than 3% on the mean measure and just over 1% on the median measure.
• For the Senior Civil Service, who make up 8% of DCMS, the pay gap is less than 6% on the mean measure and just over 9% on the median measure. If we isolate our SCS1 (Deputy Director) level from this group, there is a pay gap of just over 1% and a small negative gap on the median measure.

Grade	Pay	Officers	Male			Female			Mean Gender Pay Gap	Median Gender Pay Gap
			No.	% of dept.	% of grade	No.	% of dept.	% of grade	%	%
D	£21,160 - £21,445	10	4	1%	40%	6	1%	60%	-4.66	-6.57
C	£24,746 - £26,738	133	49	12%	37%	84	19%	63%	-1.40	0.00
B	£32,152 - £37,877	295	138	34%	47%	157	36%	53%	0.83	-0.04
A	£48,892 - £56,805	253	135	34%	53%	118	27%	47%	-0.17	-0.92
A(U)	£55,388 - £66,665	84	40	10%	48%	44	10%	52%	2.88	1.18
SCS	£65,000 +	65	36	9%	55%	29	7%	45%	5.65	9.26
Total	-	840	402	48%	-	438	52%	-	7.50	22.90

As a result, our data highlights two overall issues:

1. The distribution of men in DCMS is marginally skewed to senior grades so the ‘middle male’ (half of men paid more, half paid less) is at Grade A level, whereas the ‘middle woman’ is at Grade B. The median pay gap is the difference between their pay, and the minimum for Grade A is £11,015 more than the maximum for Grade B. This gap in pay between grades is what makes our median gender pay gap so large, but the higher concentration of women in administrative grades is the reason why our median exists

2. There is a wide variation in pay among our 16 Directors where the mean gender pay gap is 19%. Three of our four new male Directors were recruited externally through open competition into new specialist roles; they were recruited onto much higher salaries than our internal promotees, due to the business critical skills that they possessed. All our new female directors at the time were internally promoted and bound by the wider Civil Service policy on pay increases on internal promotion. The mean gender pay gap for the whole department, excluding the 16 staff at Director level falls from 7.5% to 5%

DCMS follows current Civil Service wide guidelines on pay and promotion within the SCS, but will internally monitor and review any impact this has on the DCMS gender pay gap. We should, however, work even harder to attract as many specialist women as men from the external market. On the first issue, we will seek to:

a. Address the gap between the pay bands by progressing work into splitting the B grade and defining HEO and SEO roles; b. Ensure our more junior roles (B, C, D) are balanced on gender terms and, c. Raise the proportion of grade A roles occupied by women to 50%.

Organisational Structure

DCMS consists of two business groups, each headed by a Director-General (DG): Digital & Media and Performance & Strategy. These are broken down further into 16 directorates, with 8 directorates belonging to each DG.

DCMS uses grades ranging from Grade D (administrative level grade) to Senior Civil Servant (SCS - director level grade), with a merged grade for Higher Executive Officer (HEO) and Senior Executive Officer (SEO) and one Permanent Secretary (SCS4).

Civil Service Grades	DCMS Grade	DCMS Pay Ranges (2017-18)
SCS	SCS	£65,000 +
6	A(U)	£55,388 - £66,665
7	A	£48,892 - £56,805
HEO/SEO	B	£32,152 - £37,877
EO	C	£24,746 - £26,738
AO/AA	D	£21,160 - £21,445

As highlighted in the table above, there is a significant gap between the maximum Grade B salary and minimum Grade A salary. This, paired with the higher prevalence of females at the more junior grades, is a significant contributing factor to our gender pay gap.

If we were to completely remove this interval between the maximum Grade B salary and the minimum Grade A salary, it would decrease the department’s median gender pay gap significantly. That is, if everyone above the maximum Grade B salary and those at, or below, the minimum Grade A salary were to move to a new Grade A minimum just above the current Grade B maximum (whilst maintaining the salary distribution across Grade A), the median gender pay gap would become 3.2%.

Grades vary according to the level of responsibility that staff have. Each grade has a set pay range with pay gaps between each grade. Historic contractual automatic pay progression is generally not observed in standard DCMS contracts with the exception of those who are on legacy terms and conditions, which may still affect our gender pay gap. Therefore, while it is generally expected that the longer an employee remained in a grade the greater they would earn, this is a slower progression in line with the annual ‘pay award’ with Her Majesty’s Treasury pay remit guidance having been capped at 1% average increase.

The Department had 887 staff in total on 31 March 2018 and of those, 52% were women. It should be noted that only 840 officers are in scope for the calculations involved in this report, as per the exclusions detailed on page 20. On the same date, the Department had 65 Senior Civil Servants (SCS), 45% of whom were women. These figures are demonstrated below. DCMS has no Executive Agencies. We have Non-Ministerial Departments that will report their gender pay gap data separately.

Grade	Male	Female
Delegated grades	48%	52%
SCS	55%	45%

Gender Balance by Grade

DCMS generally has good gender balance across the delegated grades, although there are a higher proportion of women in the smaller administrative grades C and D. The grades with the largest number of employees are the managerial grades, B and A respectively.

Grade	Pay	Officers	Male			Female
			No.	% of dept.	% of grade	No.	% of dept.	% of grade
D	£21,160 - £21,445	10	4	1%	40%	6	1%	60%
C	£24,746 - £26,738	133	49	12%	37%	84	19%	63%
B	£32,152 - £37,877	295	138	34%	47%	157	36%	53%
A	£48,892 - £56,805	253	135	34%	53%	118	27%	47%
A(U)	£55,388 - £66,665	84	40	10%	48%	44	10%	52%
SCS	£65,000 +	65	36	9%	55%	29	7%	45%
Total	-	840	402	48%	-	438	52%	-

Gender representation at the SCS Deputy Director Level (SCS1) is well balanced. At Director level (SCS2), there is a greater gender imbalance in favour of men. Our Senior Civil Service (SCS) has undergone a change in workforce since the last report snapshot in 2017, shifting from a greater proportion of women in 2017 to a greater proportion of men in this snapshot.

Grade	Officers	Male	% Male	Female	% Female
SCS1	46	24	52%	22	48%
SCS2	16	11	69%	5	31%
SCS3	2	1	50%	1	50%
SCS4	1	0	0%	1	100%
Total	65	36	55%	29	45%

The point of change in the below graph, between July and October 2017, is in line with the aforementioned Machinery of Government and the increased recruitment and headcount in our digital areas.

Snapshot date	Male	Female
01/03/2017	43	57
01/04/2017	46	54
01/05/2017	46	54
01/06/2017	48	52
01/07/2017	46	54
01/08/2017	45	55
01/09/2017	47	53
01/10/2017	51	49
01/11/2017	53	47
01/12/2017	54	46
01/01/2018	54	46
01/02/2018	57	43
01/03/2018	56	44

Gender Pay Gap Data

The mean gender pay gap is 7.50% and the median gender pay gap is 22.90%. This has increased from the figures reported in 2017^{[footnote 4]}. The wider Civil Service gender pay gap is 9.8% and 12.2% for mean and median respectively, published by the ONS in August 2018; it should be noted that these were calculated using a different methodology^{[footnote 5]}. Whilst DCMS’ mean gender pay gap is more favourable than the mean Civil Service gap, our median is greater.

Gender	Grade D	Grade C	Grade B	Grade A	Grade A(U)	SCS
Male	1%	12%	34%	34%	10%	9%
Female	1%	19%	36%	27%	10%	7%

The median gender pay gap is larger than the mean gap due to the higher concentration of female employees in the administrative grades D and C. As a result, the median falls in two different grades for men and women. For women, the median salary was £36,678 which falls within the upper region of the Grade B pay range (£32,152 to £37,877 as of 31/03/2018), whereas for men, the median falls on the Grade A minimum salary (£48,892 as of 31/03/2018). The median appears particularly large in comparison to the mean gap, due to the gap of £11,015 in pay between the Grade B maximum and the Grade A minimum.

Therefore, whilst our median is exacerbated by the gap of £11,015 between the Grade B maximum and the Grade A minimum, it would still be present due to the larger concentration of females in the lower grades. As a result, we will be improving the access to leadership development schemes for women, to encourage internal career progression and aim to increase the number of women in our senior grades.

When the gender pay gap figures are broken down by grade, it becomes clear that the most significant gender pay gap occurs between officers in the Senior Civil Service level.

Grade	Total Population	Mean Gender Pay Gap (%)	Median Gender Pay Gap (%)
D	10	-4.66	-6.57
C	133	-1.40	0.00
B	295	0.83	-0.04
A	253	-0.17	-0.92
A(U)	84	2.88	1.18
SCS Overall	65	5.65	9.26
Total	840	7.50	22.90

When we breakdown the Senior Civil Service (SCS) figures into Deputy Director and Director levels, it is evident that the gender pay gap is greater in the smaller Director level.

The SCS2 grade is one of the highest earning in the department, meaning that the disproportionately high number of men at this grade is also contributing to a higher gender pay gap.

Grade	Total Population	Mean GPG (%)	Median GPG (%)
SCS1 (Deputy Director)	46	1.13	-0.12
SCS2 (Director)	16	19.00	4.48
Total	62	10.67	8.89

This can be explained by the differences in recruiting internally (by promotion or lateral transfer from within the Civil Service) and externally (from the private/third sectors). When promoting internally, civil servants are now limited to certain pay uplifts; they are only entitled to their new grade pay band minimum or a 10% increase in salary, whichever is greater. External candidates are not limited to the same rules and therefore have the option of greater salary negotiation if they satisfy the requirements for a business case. Furthermore, if the business area requires specialist skills, or competition with the private sector means it is difficult to attract and retain particular skills, then these candidates may be further eligible for additional allowances to their salary. These processes allow for greater variation between salaries at the same grade.

To explain the greater gender pay gap at Director level, there are a small number of male high earners at the Director level. They were recruited from the private sector for their specialist skills, to lead the new work taken on by DCMS in 2017, but do contribute to the widening of the gender pay gap. All three of these individuals are highly skilled in their areas and are essential to the work that we do.

Of the 20 newest recruits joining DCMS to the Senior Civil Service grades, before the snapshot date of 31 March 2018, 12 were male and 8 were female. The male candidates who were recruited from the private sector started on salaries closer to the pay band maximums and were amongst our highest earners. To demonstrate the difference in salaries within the Senior Civil Service, of these 20 recruited, the difference between the highest male earner and the highest female earner was £53,223. The male earner was recruited from the private sector and the female earner from within the Civil Service. The cross Civil Service internal promotion rules of 10% increase in salary applied to the female earner, whereas the male earner had room for negotiation due to the specialist skills he possessed.

Our gender pay gap for 2018 can also be attributed to a gender imbalance in our newer digital directorates. The digital and technology industry is traditionally and substantively seen as male-dominated as a whole, which may have an impact on our recruitment into these roles. According to figures published by the ONS in October 2018, women make up only 17% of professionals in information technology and telecommunication roles across the UK^{[footnote 6]}. In 2017, our headcount increased following a Machinery of Government and a recruitment drive to our Digital and Media business group. Of the 20 new SCS, mentioned above, 18 joined the Digital and Media business group.

Over a one-year period, since the last report for 31 March 2017, there has been a 72% increase in headcount for the digital directorates within the Digital and Media business group^{[footnote 7]}. This is compared to an increase in headcount of only 22% in our Performance and Strategy business group^{[footnote 8]}. These increases account for a greater gender imbalance in the digital directorates of the Digital and Media business groups; men represented 57% of the employees on 31 March 2018 in these directorates.

Our larger digital directorates with over 50 employees, have a greater proportion of men than women and possess larger gender pay gaps compared to our other business areas.

Bonus Pay

DCMS offers in-year reward and recognition schemes for the delegated grades D-A(U) and a separate scheme for the Senior Civil Service. End of year performance awards are given to all staff who receive an ‘exceeded’ rating in their annual appraisal.

The department’s end of year performance awards are paid as a set value depending on grade and performance level, irrespective of gender. The higher the grade, the higher the award. It is standard practice across organisations for non-consolidated bonus payments to be pro-rated in accordance with number of hours worked by each employee. Therefore, those working part-time will receive a lower bonus than those working full-time hours. In-year awards are paid to staff, regardless of working hours, on an agreed range based on the level of service provided to the business from categories commendable, exceptional or outstanding. Our directorates control how and where they spend their in-year award budgets therefore annual fluctuations in the bonus gap are, to some extent, to be expected.

The mean gender bonus gap (the difference between men and women) is 25.36% and the median gender bonus gap is 9.09%. These figures are included within, and contribute to, our overall gender pay gap detailed in the previous section. The gender bonus pay gap is calculated using bonuses received over 12 months ending 31 March 2018. All staff who were on the DCMS payroll at any point between April 2017 and March 2018 have been included in this calculation - this does not include Ministers, Special Advisers, contractors or agency staff.

Of those who were in scope, 154 men received a bonus and 188 women received a bonus. These can be both in-year awards or end of year awards and the percentages of men and women who received a bonus can be seen below.

	Male	Female
	38.2%	45.8%

Whilst fewer men received bonuses than women, the bonus pay gap arises as men were paid proportionately more.

Our Senior Civil Service receive larger bonuses than the delegated grades with the top 25% of performers receiving end of year awards. Some individuals may have a contractual bonus agreement which is dependent on a different performance assessment. Of those in scope, 21 Senior Civil Servants received bonuses between the period 1 April 2017 to 31 March 2018 - 11 men and 10 women. On average there was a £2,388.80 difference, in favour of men, between all bonus amounts awarded to Senior Civil Servants across the 2017/2018 financial year. This can be explained in part by a large bonus awarded to a male employee through a negotiated contractual arrangement. If we were to remove the contractual bonus paid to this individual from our calculation, the bonus gap would be reduced by just over 10 percentage points.

Amongst the delegated grades, proportionately more women received end of year awards than men at grades D, C and A. Proportionately more men received end of year awards at grades B, A(U) and at SCS. At Grade A(U), the proportion of eligible men receiving end of year awards (32.26%) was much higher than the proportion of eligible women (18.75%). The size of end of year awards increases with grade seniority, meaning that discrepancies in the proportion of men and women receiving these bonuses at the higher grades will have a greater influence on our gender bonus gap.

A similar effect has occurred at the Senior Civil Service level, although the effect this has will be greater due to size of the awards given.

Of the SCS eligible to receive end of year awards, a higher proportion of men were awarded end of year bonuses (25% of male SCS) compared to women (20.59% of female SCS). Even though, at the SCS level, only 2 more men than women were awarded end of year bonuses, the awards are much larger for Senior Civil Servants and this will have a greater impact on the gender bonus gap than discrepancies in the delegated grades where awards and group size are smaller.

Hourly Pay Quartiles

The following pay quartile figures are calculated by listing our department’s hourly wages in ascending order and then splitting the department into four equal parts. Those with lower hourly wages will fall into the lower 3rd and 4th quartiles and those with the higher hourly wages will fall into the upper 1st and 2nd quartiles. The first row on the chart shows the distribution of men and women over the whole department.

Quartile	Male	Female
All staff	48%	52%
4th Quartile	41%	59%
3rd Quartile	43%	59%
2nd Quartile	56%	44%
1st Quartile	50%	50%

As 52% of the department’s staff are female we can see that this distribution arises from a higher concentration of women in the junior grades, from the 3rd and 4th quartiles, with a male majority only in the 2nd quartile. Our most senior staff, in the 1st quartile, are composed of an even split between men and women.

Comparing Methodologies

In August 2018, the ONS reported DCMS’ mean pay gap as 9.2% and median pay gap as 26.0% at 31 March 2018.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is the UK’s largest independent producer of official statistics and the recognised national statistical institute of the UK. Each year ONS undertakes two surveys and the published outputs include gender pay gap statistics. These are:

• Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE). This uses employee’s actual earnings, excluding overtime, and actual working hours during a specified pay period. ASHE uses this data to calculate the hourly rate which is used to calculate the national gender pay gap figures
• Annual Civil Service Employment Survey (ACSES). This uses employee’s full time annual equivalent pay, excluding bonuses. This annual figure is used to calculate the gender pay gap. ACSES does not collect contracted hours and therefore, does not calculate hourly rate

It is important to note that the two surveys reference Gender Pay Gap but do not use exactly the same methodology to the Gender Pay Gap data contained in this report, which makes it difficult to make direct comparisons.

Data Exclusions

All ‘full pay relevant employees’ must be included in calculations for the gender pay gap - the definition of ‘full pay relevant employees’ is anyone who was paid their normal pay on 31st March for the March period. However, the data gathered for this report is also subject to some data exclusions.

The following exclusions are applicable to this report:

• Anyone on full pay for leave (maternity, sick, etc.) has been included. Anyone on leave who is being paid less than their ordinary monthly pay (or is not being paid at all) has been excluded
• Anyone who joined/left mid-month has been excluded
• All ministers, Special Advisors, agency staff and contractors who are not on DCMS payroll have been excluded
• Anyone on loan in to/out of DCMS whose salary is being paid by another government department has been excluded

Comparison with last year

In 2017, the mean gender pay gap reported by DCMS was 3.3% and the median gender pay gap was 8.2%. Whilst the snapshot from 2018 has shown an increase on last years’ figures, the Department has undergone a change in ministerial responsibilities and a large increase in staff numbers since the previous report, leading to a change in workforce structure.

On 3rd July 2017, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport became the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, officially incorporating a new technical area into our workforce. As well as overall growth in the Department, the digital areas of our workforce expanded in headcount by 72% with this area now contributing to 46% of the Department’s overall workforce. The increased recruitment to the digital areas attracted specialist skills from the private sector, primarily from male candidates who dominate the digital and technology industries. However, our own digital directorates reflect favourably against the gender distribution in these sectors, where women make up 43% of professionals in digital, data and telecommunications roles in DCMS. Nonetheless, members of staff who arrived from digital roles in the private sector with specialist skills are likely to have had greater negotiating power than their public sector colleagues, particularly due to the pay on promotion restrictions within the Civil Service.

Furthermore, there were fewer women in the Senior Civil Service in March 2018 than in March 2017, when women made up 56% of the SCS. Where there are smaller populations of individuals at each grade (particularly in grades D, C and in the high pay grades of the SCS), then the gender pay gap is more sensitive to changes in the composition of that group.

How we are closing our Gender Pay Gap

Our Diversity and Inclusion Plan, first introduced in 2016, has been helping to improve our working culture and equal outcomes for all individuals in DCMS. We have done this by:

• Supporting, and removing barriers to progression for under-represented groups;
• Encouraging diversity reporting to better understand our workforce and targeting policies accordingly;
• Taking a zero tolerance culture to bullying and harassment and;
• Engaging staff and leaders to ensure pay decisions are fair and consistent across the department

However, this report has highlighted two key findings which we will now seek to address, namely:

i. A slightly skewed distribution of men within DCMS towards the senior grades, and that of women towards the junior grades affecting our median gap.

ii. A significantly higher gender pay gap at the SCS2 level, where we have engaged in more internal recruitment for women within the bounds of Civil Service promotion rules, and external recruitment for men, where higher salaries are usually negotiated if the candidates possess business critical skills.

With this knowledge, DCMS is better equipped to closing the gender pay gap, something we are both committed and determined to do. This is demonstrated through some of the initiatives we are undertaking in our Action Plan:

• Senior Civil Service Pay We will continue to review and consider the impact of the annual Senior Civil Service Pay Award on differences in gender pay. In addition to this, we will increase our efforts to attract women into our specialist roles which tend to be filled through external recruitment and thus attract higher salaries. We will also clearly state where salaries are negotiable, through salary bands, in order to encourage more women to discuss this when applying for external roles
• Improve the representation of women at the senior grades Given our greater proportion of women in the administrative grades, we will be better advertising and improving access to development schemes to support internal career progression and increase the number of women in senior roles to reduce our median gender pay gap
• Progressing work to reassess the pay structure of the Band B grade In conjunction with the above action, this will help reduce the gap between the Grade B salary maximum and the Grade A salary minimum which, at the time considered in this report, was £11,015
• Refreshing our Diversity and Inclusion Plan Refreshing our Diversity and Inclusion Plan to recognise our successes and areas where we can improve for all individuals in DCMS. This will continue to be reviewed on an annual basis to ensure that our policies and focus remain effective and up to date. Findings from this report will be used to better use and tailor our plan
• Regular Reporting and Diversity Declarations Increase our internal gender pay gap reporting to a quarterly basis to identify trends and better target the relevant areas of the business. This will help to improve how we manage the gender pay gap and focus our actions in the most effective way
• Recruitment and Retention Recruitment of individuals with specialist skills may lead to higher starting salaries or specialist allowance payments. We will be strengthening the messaging on higher starting salaries and ensure that these are being issued in line with the policy, fairly and consistently across the department

As a department, we recognise the importance of diversity both within our workforce and that of the wider ecosystem within which we operate. To that end, we are currently operating projects focusing on increasing diversity within digital and technology roles across all sectors. We support and give funding to the Tech Talent Charter (TTC) to create an industry collective to deliver greater diversity in the tech workforce across all industries. Currently, over 275 companies, from international tech giants, right through to start-ups, small and medium-sized enterprises and charities, have already signed the Charter, with a goal to increase the number of signatories exponentially. Further, every Government department has agreed to sign the TTC. We also launched our Local Digital Skills Partnership to collaborate with, and support, other diversity initiatives to encourage more young people into the world of digital and technology careers. We hope that our efforts to support diversity in the digital sector will help to transform the talent pool that we recruit from and increase the number of women in digital and technology roles across the industry.

How will we measure our progress?

We hope that by increasing our regular internal reporting we will be able to better analyse trends in the gender pay gap in relation to workforce changes and recruitment to our business areas. This will better support us with regularly reviewing the effect of our actions and highlight business areas that may require more support.

Declaration

The data reported by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport is accurate and has been calculated and quality assured according to the requirements and methodology set out in the Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties and Public Authorities) Regulations 2017^{[footnote 9]}.

1. Gender pay gap figures for DCMS on 31 March 2017 were 3.3% mean and 8.2% median. ↩

2. Please see page 19 for further detail on what is included/excluded from each methodology used. ↩

3. DCMS from a headcount of 656 in 31 March 2017 to a headcount of 887 on 31 March 2018. ↩

4. Gender pay gap figures for DCMS on 31 March 2017 were 3.3% mean and 8.2% median. ↩

5. Please see page 19 for further detail on what is included/excluded from each methodology used. ↩

6. ONS ‘Gender Pay Gap in the UK: 2018’ Office for National Statistics, 25th October 2018 [accessed: 25/10/2018] ↩

7. Headcount increased from 173 on 31 March 2017 to 298 on 31 March 2018 ↩

8. Headcount increased from 381 on 31 March 2017 to 464 on 31 March 2018 ↩

9. Government Equalities Office and Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service, ‘Gender Pay Gap reporting: make your calculations’ GOV. UK, 6th March 2017 [accessed: 08/10/2018] ↩