Defra's gender pay gap report 2020
Published 15 December 2020
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Foreword
Defra is the UK government department responsible for safeguarding our natural environment, supporting our food and farming industry and sustaining a thriving rural economy. Our broad remit means we play a major role in people’s day-to-day lives, developing policies and services that impact people across the UK and beyond. We are committed to being an equitable, diverse and inclusive organisation, where every individual has equality of opportunity to progress and is able to thrive. Our new Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy 2020 to 2024 reaffirms this commitment.
As an organisation, we are accountable and open to challenge and scrutiny. Our gender pay gap reporting considers how well we achieve gender equality in our pay structures. This report provides gender pay gap information for the year ending 31 March 2020, with comparable information for the previous three years *(2017, 2018 and 2019).
It is pleasing that both our mean (7.2%) and median (7.4%) gender pay gaps have reduced this year (reduction of 1.2% mean, 2% median), thus maintaining a continuous downward trend over the last four years. Our policies and initiatives promote equal opportunities for all our workforce and it is encouraging to see this reflected in our narrowing pay gaps.
However, there remains more work to be done to reduce and ultimately close the gender pay gap. We will continue to pay particular attention to how we are recruiting, developing and retaining staff and creating clear pathways for people to progress in their career.
In addition, we have recently established a cross Defra Group Gender Board to address gender equality in Defra organisations. This board feeds into our Inclusion Leadership Group.
Our commitment to close the gender pay gap speaks to a broader agenda of inclusion and we look forward to further progressing this goal as part of an ambitious strategy to achieve equality in the workplace.
David Hill
Defra Group Gender Champion, Director General Environment, Rural and Marine
Introduction
Gender Pay Gap legislation introduced in April 2017, requires all employers of 250 or more employees to publish their gender pay gap annually for workers in scope as of 31 March. In terms of scope, this includes the 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 is the difference in the average pay between all men and women in the organisation. It is different to equal pay, which is about the difference in the actual earnings of men and women doing equal work (or work of equal value).
The mean gender pay gap is the difference between the mean hourly rate of male full-pay relevant employees and that of female full-pay relevant employees [footnote 1].
The median gender pay gap is the difference between the median hourly rate of pay of male full-pay relevant employees and that of female full-pay relevant employees.
For the purposes of gender pay gap reporting, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) includes the core government department and Civil Service agencies; Rural Payments Agency (RPA), Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA), Veterinary Medicines Directorate (VMD) and Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS). Unless specified all references to Defra in this paper refer to Defra and its Executive Agencies.
Gender pay gap summary
A summary of the gender pay gap including proportions of men and women receiving bonuses and pay quartiles in a 12 month period ending 31 March 2020.
Proportions of men and women receiving bonuses
Defra’s gender profile
56% of Defra’s workforce are women
52% of Defra’s Senior Civil Service are women
Our overall percentage of female staff (gender profile), at 56%, has remained stable when compared to previous years. It also continues to be higher than the Civil Service average of 54% female. The percentage of women within the Defra’s Senior Civil Service has increased to 52%, this is greater than the Civil Service female SCS representation at 45%.
Overall, there are more women than men at all grades with the exception of Grade 6. Defra uses Civil Service grades ranging from Administrative Assistants (administrative level grade) to Senior Civil Servant (executive level grade). Grades vary according to the level of responsibility and each grade has a set pay range. In general staff move through the pay range for their grade, therefore the longer someone has been in a grade the more likely they are to earn more, irrespective of their gender.
The following table shows the distribution of female and male staff by grade from junior to senior roles in Defra.
Table 1: Defra’s workforce split by grade and gender
| Grade (Increasing in seniority) | Number of women (Women as % of workforce at this grade) | Number of men (men as % of workforce at this grade) |
|---|---|---|
| AA/AO | 1301 (64%) | 741 (36%) |
| EO | 1151 (57%) | 855 (43%) |
| HEO | 1155 (55%) | 948(45%) |
| SEO | 1099 (55%) | 886 (45%) |
| G7 | 801 (50%) | 799 (50%) |
| G6 | 276 (49%) | 286 (51%) |
| SCS | 108 (52%) | 101 (48%) |
| Grand Total (including unknown grades) | 5933 (56%) | 4658 (44%) |
In comparison, this table shows the overall representation of women at each grade in the Civil Service taken from the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Dashboard, 2019.
Table 2: Representation of women in the Civil Service
| Women at each grade in the Civil Service | % Representation |
|---|---|
| AA/AO | 57.2% |
| EO | 56.1% |
| HEO/SEO | 50.0% |
| G7 | 47.5% |
| G6 | 45.3% |
| SCS | 45.2% |
| Women in the Civil Service overall | 53.9% |
Defra’s gender pay gap over time
Table 3: Defra’s gender pay gap data 2017 to 2020
| Year | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mean gender pay gap | 11.5% | 9.8% | 8.4% | 7.2% | ||||
| Median gender pay gap | 12.1% | 11.7% | 9.4% | 7.4% | ||||
| Mean gender bonus pay gap | 20.6% | 10% | 11.6% | 12.3% | ||||
| Median gender bonus pay gap | 16.7% | 19% | 14.2% | 20.0% | ||||
| Proportion receiving a bonus | M | F | M | F | M | F | M | F |
| 47% | 45% | 39% | 35% | 49% | 47% | 57% | 58% |
Analysis of gender pay gap data
Defra’s mean (7.2%) and median (7.4%) gender pay gap have both decreased since last year, with a 4.3% and 4.7% reduction when viewed over the four years. Although our pay gaps shows that men continue to be paid more than women, our pay gaps have considerably narrowed.
Defra’s performance awards are paid as a set value depending on grade and performance level, irrespective of gender. The proportion of men and women receiving a bonus has remained stable, 57% of men received a bonus and 58% of women received a bonus. Our mean bonus gap has slightly increased (0.7%) however a larger increase can be seen in the median bonus gap (5.8%) when compared to last year (2018-19). Bonus pay gap calculations are based on individual employee bonuses and do not differentiate between the bonuses of employees working full-time or part-time. This is important because overall women are more likely to work part-time, leading to pro-rata bonuses. Women make up 56% of the workforce with 28% of women working part-time. In contrast only 7% of men (increase of 1% from previous year) work part-time. Bonuses were pro-rated for staff who worked part-time which lowers the average bonus pay for part time women. As a greater proportion of women work part-time, more women received pro-rated bonuses thus impacting the bonus pay gap.
Analysis shows that the main reason for the remaining pay gap continues to be the proportion of male and female employees in different grades. Although there are more women than men in all but Grade 6, proportionately, there continue to be more women in more junior grades, and more men in the upper pay quartiles [footnote 2].
| Female % | Male % | |
|---|---|---|
| Lower quartile | 62 | 38 |
| Lower middle | 57 | 43 |
| Upper middle | 55 | 45 |
| Upper quartile | 49 | 51 |
The representation of women in the two higher quartiles has increased, the proportion of women (49%) in the upper quartile has seen a 6% increase when compared over the four year reporting period since 2017.
Table 4: Proportions of men and women in each pay quartile 2017-2020
Figures include rounding to nearest whole number.
| Year | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| M | F | M | F | M | F | M | F | |
| Lower quartile | 36% | 64% | 36% | 64% | 37% | 63% | 38% | 62% |
| Lower middle | 43% | 57% | 43% | 57% | 43% | 57% | 43% | 57% |
| Upper middle | 50% | 50% | 47% | 53% | 46% | 54% | 45% | 55% |
| Upper quartile | 57% | 43% | 55% | 45% | 53% | 47% | 51% | 49% |
Taking action to close the gender pay gap
Defra aspires alongside other Civil Service organisations to be the most inclusive employer in the UK. We are working to close our gender pay gap by delivering a number of initiatives through our Defra group Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy, and through our newly established cross Defra Group Gender Board. The Gender Board includes a specific working group developing targeted actions to address the gap.
The Gender Board is chaired by an Executive Committee Champion and feeds into an overall Inclusion Leadership Group of senior leaders which has oversight of ongoing work to improve equality, promote collaborative working and remove barriers to progress.
Establishing these new internal bodies, working in collaboration with employee diversity networks, our Pay, Reward and Equality, Diversity and Inclusion teams will be key to ensuring that we have the level of executive sponsorship and focus on this work.
At the same time, we continue with programmes and initiatives that are already making a difference:
Providing active support for women returning to work following maternity or adoption leave. We offer shared parental leave, job share, part-time working opportunities and flexible working.
We help women to progress their careers through talent schemes such as the ‘Cross Government’ Positive Action Pathways. In addition we continue to address the relationships between gender and other diversity characteristics by taking action to better understand their career progression through initiatives like the ‘Ethnic Minority Women’s Sprints’.
We support a range of employee led networks championed by Defra’s senior management. Defra’s women’s networks for example, aim to help women reach their full potential by providing advice and support, contributing to policy development and establishing good practices.
In addition to Women’s networks, Defra also has a Job Share Network, Solo Parents Network and a Work Life Balance Network. We will take more action to encourage men to join these networks.
We monitor pay to identify any pay differences and take targeted action to ensure our processes are fair and transparent. In addition, we will scrutinise our bonus gap further with a focus on identifying an hourly gap, which takes into account part-time pro-rata bonuses. This will provide important insights into the gap between women’s and men’s bonuses.
We continue to review and refresh our approach to resourcing to ensure the recruitment of women and men at all levels is inclusive. We anonymise our application processes, use diverse interview panels for selection and recommend that all interviewers have undergone unconscious bias training. Recruitment data is monitored throughout the attraction, recruitment and selection processes to identify areas for further improvement in achieving greater diversity in our workforce. In view of data highlighted earlier in the report, this will include consideration of whether or not specific action should be taken to achieve better gender parity in more junior grades where women are currently overrepresented.
Declaration
We confirm that data reported by Defra 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.
Tamara Finkelstein Defra Group Permanent Secretary
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‘Full-pay relevant employee’ means a relevant employee who is not, during the relevant pay period, being paid at a reduced rate or nil as a result of the employee being on leave, The Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017. Throughout this report, references to employees or gender profile includes full-pay relevant employees only. The ‘relevant pay period’, in relation to the relevant employee, means (a) the period in respect of which the relevant employer pays the employee basic pay, whether weekly, fortnightly, or monthly or any other period, or (b) if the relevant employer does not pay the employee basic pay, the period in respect of which the employer most frequently pays the employee one of the elements of ordinary pay mentioned in regulation 3(1) (b) to (e), The Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017. ↩
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Quartile figures include rounding to nearest whole number ↩