Corporate report

Insolvency Service Gender Pay Gap Report 2021 - 2022

Updated 17 March 2023

Applies to England, Scotland and Wales

1. Background

This report meets the legal obligation for the Insolvency Service to report on our Gender Pay Gap this is due to employing more than 250 employees which is the threshold for the Financial Year 2021-2022. The Insolvency Service and the Civil Service want 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. It is part of our Five-Year strategy to “Shape” the Agency into a great place to work.

In 2017, the government introduced world-leading legislation that made it a statutory requirement for organisations with 250 or more employees to report annually on their gender pay gap. Most Government departments, including their Executive Agencies 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 relevant organisations to publish their gender pay gap by 30 March annually. 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 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 several issues to deal with, and the individual calculations may help to identify what those issues are. The distribution of women in higher paid roles in any organisation affects the pay gap.

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.

Insolvency Service supports the fair treatment and reward of all staff irrespective of sex. In February 2022 the new Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy was published. This important strategy document was launched as part of the Government’s Levelling Up programme aimed at driving improvements in the day-to-day lives of all citizens, spending taxpayers’ money with care and providing excellent services.

To enable a Civil Service that:

• understands and draws from the communities it serves – drawing from a range of backgrounds, experiences, and locations
• is visible to everyone – engaging the communities we serve and showcasing what the Civil Service offers
• is flexible – supporting innovation, performance, and engagement
• welcomes talent from wherever it comes – attracting the best talent from all backgrounds

2. 2021 Headline figures:

The Insolvency Service has published its Gender Pay Gap Report on gov.uk. for ease we have included previous years in our analysis making 3-year period comparisons.

Period Ending -Date	31 March 2020	31 March 2021	31 March 2022
1. Mean gender pay gap - Ordinary pay	10.5%	9.4%	9%
2. Median gender pay gap - Ordinary pay	15.7%	14.7%	16.1%

The headline 2022 Gender Pay Gap figures for the Insolvency Service show a reduction in our mean gender pay gap to 9% but the median gender pay gap of 16.1% is an increase.

The mean is what is commonly described as the average. It involves adding together the pay or bonuses of employees and then dividing by the number of employees.

The median is the middle value of all hourly rates or bonuses when ranked. That is the amount paid to the employee in the middle of the list, if employees are listed in order of pay or bonus. The advantage of looking at the median is that it’s less affected by numbers at the top end of the pay range, such as the earnings of a small number of senior executives.

The gender pay gap is calculated as the difference between average (mean or median) hourly earnings excluding overtime of men and women as a proportion of men’s average hourly earnings.

We’re using both figures because they give us slightly different insights into the distribution of our pay and bonus data, and regulations require us to report on both. As per the regulations, the pay gaps and quartiles figures are based on the pay data on the snapshot date of 30 March 2022. The bonus gaps and participation figures are based on bonuses paid over the 12 months prior to the snapshot date.

This report fulfils the Agency’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. Our Organisation

Our purpose is ‘delivering economic confidence’ through an organisation that has a flexible workforce empowered and rewarded to develop their capability and professional skills. We are an employer of choice where people are engaged and leadership, particularly through change, is recognised as a strength in all our leaders, whatever their role or grade, meaning we can quickly and easily meet fluctuations in demands and are agile enough to adopt new ways of working effectively and efficiently.

We have delivered and support this through our People Strategy which in turn supports our 5 Year Agency Strategy which has detailed our vision: -

Fair and effective - Our vision is a fair, efficient, and effective insolvency system that enables us to provide essential value for money services to those affected by financial distress or failure, whilst playing a vital part in supporting the integrity of the marketplace for businesses and citizens.

Pride in our delivery - Our services help to boost long-term economic growth by giving confidence to the business community, lenders, and investors, supported by a confident and committed workforce who are well-equipped for the role. Together, we are proud that the UK’s insolvency regime is a global leader in fairness and inclusivity.

High standards of regulation - We maintain the standards that help make the UK one of the best places in the world to do business and invest in, robustly regulating the insolvency profession to ensure our world-leading framework remains fit for purpose and internationally respected.

Respect for our customers - Treating each of our customers as an individual and with respect is at the heart of what we do, as we continuously improve and evolve our services based on robust insight and evidence.

Innovation - As well as delivering our core activity, we never stop looking to innovate, whether that is developing the delivery of the ‘business as usual’ to be more streamlined, effective, and robust, or spearheading pioneering new models of work around prevention and education, to respond to changing market and economic conditions. This innovative ethos ultimately delivers for our customers, as well as making our colleagues’ work more rewarding.

4. The Data

The report published provides our gender pay gap, using the snapshot date of 31 March 2022. This data was drawn from the Annual Civil Service Employment Survey (ACSES) which is collated and published collectively across the Civil Service by the Cabinet Office.

Gender make-up of the organisation:

• On 31st March 2020 the Insolvency Service recorded 1666 employees, with 56% female and 44% male.
• On 31st March 2021 the Insolvency Service recorded 1810 employees, with 56.7% female and 43.3% male.
• On 31st March 2022 the Insolvency Service recorded 1733 employees, with 57.4% female and 42.6% male.

As the Agency has largely maintained its employee numbers, the proportion of female employees has been steadily increasing overall.

	2022	2022	Female	Male
Grade	People in post (count)	Grade % of total employees	People in post %	People in post %
Band A	581	33.5	64.4	35.6
Band B	337	19.4	62	38
Band L	330	19.1	49	51
Band C	329	19	52	48
Band D	144	8.3	53	47
SCS	12	0.7	1.6	8.4
Total	1733	100%	994	739

Bonus Pay Gender Pay Gap

Period Ending Date	31 March 2020	31 March 2021	31 March 2022
3. Mean gender pay gap - Bonus pay in the 12 months ending 31 March 2022	-8.3%	7.7%	-0.8%
4. Median gender pay gap - Bonus pay in the 12 months ending 31 March 2022	0%	7.1%	-10%

5. Closing the gender pay gap

In analysing the Insolvency Service 2022 report, the mean Gender Pay Gap marginally reduced and whilst the median increased reflecting a shift in overall employee numbers. Whilst we accept the median has increased this may have been impacted by the pay freeze whilst continuing to recruit. In terms of the data relating to bonuses, women were higher than men in both the mean and median bonus paid so the overall figures are negative.

The difference in grade distribution is likely to be the main driver of the overall gender pay gap. Whilst our staff numbers have largely remained the same although slightly reduced, this has resulted in increasing proportions of female employees. The figures show that of those employed across the Agency, over 60% at Grade A and B are female. As the GPG calculations look at the total workforce, the departmental pay gap in the Agency can be attributed to an uneven split of men and women by grade but with a predominately female workforce– with more men occupying highest grades.

6. Our processes: recruitment, retaining and developing a diverse workforce

Insolvency Service abides with the Recruitment Principles of fair and open competition with candidate selection based on merit. We are accountable to the Civil Service Commission. To ensure fairness we use the following methods:

• mixed gender interview panels
• anonymised sifting: where all identifiable characteristics are removed
• advertise all jobs as available for flexible working, full-time, job share or part time unless this is a very strong business case not to.
• introduction of recruitment “Success Profiles” which has gone through rigorous equality analysis. The Success Profiles Framework moves recruitment away from using a purely competency-based system of assessment. It introduces a more flexible framework which assesses candidates against a range of elements using a variety of selection methods. This will give the best possible chance of finding the right person for the job, driving up performance and improving diversity and inclusion. The elements that can be assessed to find the best candidate for the role are strengths, behaviours, technical, experience and ability.
• review our data to ensure that we continue to attract a more diverse pool of candidates from application stage to offer stage.

7. Performance management

Our performance management approach sees a focus on good-quality conversations, that should include a real focus on development. We are reviewing our process to ensure it meets the needs of the Agency. Running alongside the new performance management approach is an in-year reward system. We monitor and analyse the data for our INSSPIRE award system to ensure that it is fully representative of our workforce and consistent with our known diversity data. This will be supported by our drive to increase our diversity declaration rates across the Agency.

8. Learning and development

The Civil Service offers several central cross-government talent and positive action schemes, two of which are specifically aimed at women:

The Agency takes part in several talent programmes that are coordinated and delivered by Civil Service Learning. These include:

• Future Leaders Scheme (G6/7)
• Senior Leadership Scheme (Deputy Directors & SCS1)
• Beyond Boundaries (AA - SEO grade)
• Civil Service Local Future Leaders Academy (AA - EO grade)
• Crossing Thresholds (AO - SEO grade)
• Stepping into Leadership (HEO - SEO grade)
• BEIS Aspiring Leaders Programme (HEO - SEO grade)
• BEIS Interdepartmental Talent Programme (G6/7)

9. Working with the Employee Networks

Insolvency Service employee networks have played an incredibly important role in helping to deliver D&I activity across the Agency. The Insolvency Service continues to promote and have an active workforce to ensure all groups are fully represented within the Agency. If the Agency does not specifically have its own network, then the Insolvency Service employees are encouraged to make contact with central Civil Service networks.

The Insolvency Service has 10 diversity networks including a Women’s Network. This report has been shared with the networks including the Women’s Network and their input has been welcomed in shaping this report.

Our Employee Networks include:

• Break the Stigma – (Mental Health)
• Carers Network
• Disability and Health Network
• FACES network – (Ethnicity and Race)
• Grass Roots - (Supporting our environment)
• LGBT+ Network
• No Limits – Socio Economic Background
• Part Time Workers network
• The Shed – (Men’s network)
• Women’s Network

10. Next steps

The Agency will continue to assess progress and will:

Review our recruitment practices

Reviewing our recruitment practices will help women access development opportunities. The kind of actions we are undertaking include:

• making sure that recruitment panels are gender-balanced
• reviewing our training on Inclusion in the Civil Service
• reviewing out learning opportunities on the Civil Service Campus
• exploring alternative places to advertise jobs to attract a diverse pool of applicants
• Expressions of interest will be advertised through network groups
• Advertise the civil service job share register.
• Promote the use of our Regional Centre network for new joiners and the ability for internal staff to work from any office (under the Transforming Workplaces agenda) and use of technology to open opportunities and reduce travel requirements.

Supporting parents and carers

We know that returning to work after starting a family can be challenging.

We are producing guidance for managers to help them improve the experience for returning parents. We are launching a mentoring/Buddy scheme to help returning employees juggle their changed priorities.

We will promote our shared parental leave policy, to encourage more men to take-up childcare responsibilities.

We signed the Carers Charter to commit to supporting carers in the workspace.

Employees have really welcomed our flexible working options – it benefits all of us and has the indirect effect of helping women.

Continue to support women and their networks by seeking corporate membership of “Working Families”.

We will encourage senior leaders to role model working flexibly and to champion flexible working.

Encourage men to work flexibly, so that it isn’t seen as only a female benefit

We also launched a Carers Network to provide support, insight, and advice to employees.

Supporting the women’s network

We have an established women’s network to improve engagement and awareness. This group also facilitates networking across the Agency.

The network provides access to mentoring, with the aim to help women further their practical skills and have inspiring role models.

We spoke to our women’s network to figure out what type of activities would best contribute to reducing our gender pay gap.

We’re also undertaking mentoring for success aimed at underrepresented groups, where senior managers are mentored by more junior members of staff.

Looking at the representation of women across the whole organisation.

We want to make sure talented women are represented across all our pay grades.

To do this we will set specific timebound targets for improving representation of women at SEO and Grade 7.

Annually set aside budget for a Women into Leadership programme.

Intersectional Diversity

As part of our work on a new Diversity and Inclusion Strategy, we will work on separate Disability and Ethnicity Action plans designed to improve representation.

What is the anticipated impact of our actions?

We are on the journey of improvement. Our actions are beginning to be embedded, with the aim of promoting culture change across the organisation.

This work on gender pay has empowered us to start preparation for reviewing ethnicity pay gaps.

Culture enquiries are ongoing examining the behaviors in separate directorates within the Agency help to target actions to improve employee experience.