Transparency data

DIT’s gender pay gap report 2018

Published 19 December 2018

1. Executive Summary

In 2017 the Government introduced legislation requiring all organisations with more than 250 employees to publish their gender pay gap each year. The gender pay gap shows the difference in mean and median of both hourly pay and bonuses for men and women across the organisation. This differs from equal pay which considers the difference in pay of men and women in roles of equal value.

As at 31 March 2018, 43% of DIT staff are female and 57% are male. The 2018 DIT gender pay gap is 4.7% (mean) and 9.4% (median) and the bonus gap is 0.21% (mean) and 0% (median). This shows that the value of bonuses received by men and women are equitable, with 43% of women in the department receiving a bonus payment, compared to 34% of men.

DIT’s gender pay gap can be partly attributed to an overall increase in the number of men compared to women recruited in the intervening year, particularly at Grade 7 and above. This has increased the median pay of men by more than that of women. Additionally, the 2017 report did not include civil servants based overseas, as it was impractical to obtain the data for these staff last year. Overseas staff are all at HEO and above, with a gender split of 25% women, 75% men. Including these staff has also increased the gap.

We are developing an action plan to address the pay gap, including:

• utilising software to enable us to fine tune the language of adverts to make them gender neutral
• introducing new governance processes to ensure fairness in recruitment and hiring decisions
• working alongside the departmental women’s network on career progression, including encouraging female staff to apply for more senior roles

2. Background

The Department for International Trade (DIT) has prepared this report as part of the legal requirement for public authorities to publish their gender pay gap on an annual basis.

In 2017 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 every year, 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.

DIT published its first annual report, for 2016 to 2017, in December 2017. In 2017, our analysis included only those based in the UK, as it was impractical to obtain data for those working overseas. This year’s report includes overseas Civil Servants working on the One HMG platform.

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 issues and be due to various factors. Individual calculations conducted for the gender pay gap analysis enable organisations to investigate these issues further.

The gender pay gap is different to equal pay. Equal pay deals with the pay differences between men and women who carry out the same jobs, similar jobs or work of equal value. It is unlawful to pay people unequally because they are a man or a woman.

DIT supports the fair treatment and reward of all staff irrespective of gender. In October 2017 the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (PDF, 5,739KB) was published. This important document sets out new programmes and initiatives to realise our ambition to become the UK’s most inclusive employer by 2020. The Civil Service, including DIT, wants to create a diverse and representative workplace – one that will attract and retain talented people from all backgrounds, and give everyone, including those already working for us, the opportunity to achieve their potential.

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.

3. Analysis

3.1 Context

The Department for International Trade (DIT) is one of Whitehall’s newest departments, created in July 2016 following the EU referendum. We are the UK’s international economic department responsible for bringing together policy, promotion and financial expertise to break down barriers to trade and investment and help businesses succeed, delivering a new trade policy framework for the UK as it leaves the EU. DIT promotes British trade and investment across the world and is building the global appetite for UK goods and services.

The 2018 Gender Pay Gap analysis includes those staff deemed to be full paid relevant employees based in the UK and overseas, on DIT and FCO payrolls. In 2017, our analysis included only those based in the UK, as it was impractical to obtain data for those working overseas.

As at 31 March 2018, 43% of staff (included in this analysis) were women.

The gender pay gap analysis provided in this report is based on the methodology set out in the Equality Act (Specific Duties and Public Authorities) Regulations 2017.

3.2 Ordinary Pay

The mean gender pay gap (the difference between men’s and women’s average hourly pay) is 4.7% and the median gender pay gap is 9.4%.

Our first annual gender pay gap report, published in December 2017, showed a pay gap of 3.6% (mean) and 2.7% (median). Although there has been an increase in the gender pay gap between 2017 and 2018, DIT’s pay gap remains below the 2018 Civil Service median of 12.2% as calculated by the Office of National Statistics. However, it should be noted the ONS figure is not directly comparable due to differences in calculation methodology.

This report shows why the gap has increased over the intervening year as well as setting out the initiatives we will undertake to address this.

3.3 Bonus Pay

DIT offers both an in-year reward scheme and performance awards to staff marked as ‘Exceeded’ in any annual performance year.

For this analysis, in year reward payments and end of year bonus payments (relating to the 2016 to 2017 performance year) made in the 12 months ending 31 March 2018 were included. DIT performance awards for the 2016 to 2017 performance year were paid as a set value depending on grade and performance level.

The mean gender bonus gap (difference between average bonus received by men and women) is 0.21% and the median gender bonus gap (difference between the employee in the middle of the range of male bonus and the employee in the middle the range of female bonus) is 0%. Both the mean and median gap show that bonus amounts are equitable between men and women.

A higher proportion of women received a bonus payment (43%) in comparison to the proportion of men who received a bonus payment (33%).

End of year performance awards and in-year awards in DIT are not pro-rated for part time staff (so these staff receive the full value of the bonus). Therefore, the bonus pay gap is not affected by the number of part time staff in either gender.

4. Hourly pay quartiles

The hourly pay quartile data shows the proportion of men and women that are in each pay quartile, when staff are arranged in order of hourly pay rate. In DIT, the proportions of men vs. women is relatively similar across all quartiles with more men than women in all 4. This trend is particularly evident in the third quartile.

Gender balance at different grades is one of the main contributing factors to an organisation’s gender pay gap. In terms of gender representation, the difference between DIT’s overall gender breakdown and the upper quartile is 2% in favour of men. This difference could be attributed to the fact that a significant proportion of senior appointees in DIT between 1st April 2017 and 31st March 2018 have been male.

5. Rationale for DIT’s Gender Pay Gap increase

DIT has undergone significant expansion since its creation in 2016. The pace of this did not slow between 1 April 2017 and 31 March 2018. We have recruited to a large number of posts across the department, in the UK and abroad. The proportion of women included in the 2018 analysis has decreased slightly from 2017 (44% compared to 43%); and the number of men in the department has increased from the previous year (from 56% to 57%). Our highest volume of external recruitment at senior levels is at Director level. As set out later in this report, we are conscious of the gender balance across the department and in our most senior roles and the need to proactively attract women to top positions.

The 2017 report did not include DIT civil servants working overseas, as obtaining this data was impractical for last year’s analysis. By including this group for 2018, we have automatically increased the proportion of men included in the analysis. Of the 145 DIT civil servants working overseas, 75.2% are men and 24.8% are women.

6. Actions

Although DIT’s gender pay gap for 2018 is below the Civil Service average, we are conscious that our gender pay has increased from 2017 to 2018. We are committed to reducing our overall gap through the following interventions which are aligned to the actions described in https://gender-pay-gap.service.gov.uk/.

6.1 Progress so far

• As recruitment in the Civil Service is governed by the Civil Service Commission, we ensure all candidates are assessed consistently. At a senior level, external competitions are chaired by a Civil Service Commissioner who ensures that the recruitment is open, fair and merit-based and diversity is monitored at each stage of selection. In addition, any all-male shortlists for SCS are reported to the Permanent Secretary.

• We ensure the selection process is clear on our job adverts, providing prospective candidates with transparency regarding the selection panel, assessments and criteria. We ensure a gender balance on all selection panels.

• At the most senior level, we use a range of assessments including leadership assessments, technical interviews and media scenarios. These reduce the reliance on candidates performing well at a single interview as well as testing a range of skills. These assessments aid the panel in making their final decision and are not an automatic pass or fail.

• DIT has a dedicated careers page on the Civil Service careers website to widen our attraction pool. All externally advertised jobs at SCS2 and above are also advertised via Mumsnet.

• As part of our obligations under Cabinet Office Transparency Data requirements, the salaries of our SCS staff are published on data.gov.uk.

• We actively promote flexible working arrangements to all our staff and promoted shared parental leave policies.

• DIT operates a number of staff networks and have created our Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan in collaboration with them. We recognise that their support and contributions are vital to achieving our aims.

6.2 Next Steps

We will be utilising software that allows us to fine tune the language of our adverts to make them gender neutral or to appeal to more women particularly in areas where women are under-represented (e.g. Digital, Data and Technology).

From the end of November 2018, we will introduce Civil Service Success Profiles, a new strengths-based recruitment process.

As of September 2018, the Permanent Secretary signs off all advertised SCS salaries and salaries offered to appointable candidates. This governance process will challenge hiring managers to consider gender balance. If a salary is negotiable we will state this clearly on adverts as this can also encourage women to negotiate.

As of October 2018, we actively promote diversity and inclusion in all our job adverts by making specific DIT’s commitment to diversity and inclusion.

To bring the DIT Gender Pay Gap Report 2018 to life we will create a separate action plan on the pay gap that will contribute to DIT’s D&I Action Plan.

To ensure these actions are carried out successfully we will introduce internal measures working in partnership with our Women’s Network to address some of the issues included in this report.

7. Declaration

Our calculations have followed the legislative requirements of the Equality Act (Specific Duties and Public Authorities) Regulations 2017. We confirm that the data reported is accurate as of 31 March 2018.

DIT’s workforce is based across the UK and also overseas, on the OneHMG platform. The 2018 Gender Pay Gap analysis includes those staff deemed to be full paid relevant employees based in the UK, on DIT payroll and this year we were also able to include overseas Civil Servants on the OneHMG platform into the DIT GPG calculation. Contractor were not included as obtaining data was impractical for this year’s analysis. However, these will be included in future years’ reporting and therefore it is likely to result in further changes to DIT’s overall figure.

Bonus data includes all in-year rewards made between April 2017 and 31 March 2018.