Ofqual gender pay gap report 2021
Updated 27 March 2024
Applies to England
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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/gender-pay-gap-report-ofqual/ofqual-gender-pay-gap-report-2021
Introduction
The gender pay gap is the difference in the average earnings between all men and women in an organisation. It is different to equal pay, which is about the difference in actual earnings of men and women doing equal work (or work of equal value).
From April 2017, employers with 250 or more employees must publish information on their gender pay gap. The pay gap must be reported on in 6 different ways:
- the mean and median gender pay gaps
- the mean and median gender bonus gaps
- the proportion of men and women who received bonuses
- the proportion of men and women according to quartile pay bands
The mean gender pay gap is the difference between the mean hourly rate of pay of male full-pay relevant employees and that of female full-pay relevant employees.
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.
In 2021, Ofqual exceeded the 250 employee threshold for reporting. Although this is the first official report of this type, we have previously published some of this data in our annual report.[footnote 1] It is recognised and noted that the current workforce remains under 300 heads and therefore any small changes to the organisational structure with regards to staffing can have a large impact on the gender pay gap both positively and negatively.
This report provides information on the gender pay gap for the year 2020 to 2021, with data to 31 March 2021 and comparable information for the previous year where relevant.
Gender profile
| Gender | 2021 | 2020 |
|---|---|---|
| Female | 59.5% | 59.9% |
| Male | 40.5% | 40.1% |
Our overall proportion of female staff is higher than the Civil Service average of 54.2 per cent and the UK average of 50.6 per cent. Over the period of 2020 to 2021 we have not seen a significant change in the gender profile of our organisation.
Gender pay gap
Measures of pay and bonus gaps
| Measure | 2021 | 2020 |
|---|---|---|
| Mean gender pay gap | 11.6% in favour of men | 8.2% in favour of men |
| Median gender pay gap | 12.1% in favour of men | 7.1% in favour of men |
| Mean bonus gender pay gap | 13.1% in favour of men | 6.9% in favour of men |
| Median bonus gender pay gap | 0.0% in favour of men | 0.0% in favour of men |
| Proportion receiving bonus: men | 80.0% | 75.3% |
| Proportion receiving bonus: women | 81.2% | 71.9% |
Pay bands
| Measure | 2021 | 2020 |
|---|---|---|
| Percentage of women in lower quartile | 70.8% | 70.2% |
| Percentage of women in lower middle quartile | 59.4% | 54.4% |
| Percentage of women in upper middle quartile | 58.5% | 63.2% |
| Percentage of women in upper quartile | 48.4% | 50.9% |
The median and mean gender pay gap for the Civil Service is 8.1 per cent and 7.8 per cent, down from 10.5 per cent and 9.3 per cent in 2020 respectively.
Our analysis shows that the pay gap at Ofqual is largely down to the proportion of female and male employees in different grades. Whilst we have more women than men in most grades, there is a larger proportion of women in our more junior grades.
Gender split by pay grade
| Pay grade | Female | Male |
|---|---|---|
| AA | 50.0% | 50.0% |
| EO | 79.3% | 20.7% |
| HEO | 58.1% | 41.9% |
| SEO | 64.7% | 35.3% |
| Grade 7 | 54.1% | 45.9% |
| Grade 6 | 52.4% | 47.6% |
| SCS | 50.0% | 50.0% |
| Total | 59.5% | 40.5% |
Whilst more women were eligible to receive a bonus in 2020 to 2021 than men, on average men received a higher payment. This is because the non-consolidated pay award at Ofqual is based on the end of year appraisal rating received and linked to an employee’s full time equivalent. 17.5 per cent of our female work force are part-time, compared to 3.8 per cent of men. Employees who receive an exceeded rating receive a higher non-consolidated award than those with a met rating. 41.0 per cent of men were rated as exceeded, compared with 35.7 per cent of women.
Grading structure
Ofqual is undergoing a period of significant growth and our overall headcount increased by 11 per cent during the last year, which altered the composition of our workforce.
The following table illustrates the percentages of our grading structure where the postholder is female and compares the year-on-year change.
Females in post by pay grade
| Pay grade | 2021 | 2020 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA | 50.0% | 60.0% | -10.0% |
| EO | 79.3% | 80.8% | -1.5% |
| HEO | 58.1% | 58.5% | -0.4% |
| SEO | 64.7% | 56.1% | 8.6% |
| Grade 7 | 54.1% | 57.4% | -3.3% |
| Grade 6 | 52.4% | 63.2% | -10.8% |
| SCS | 50.0% | 50.0% | 0.0% |
| Total | 59.5% | 59.9% | -0.4% |
We have maintained our gender spilt at SCS grade and increased the number of women at SEO by 8.6 per cent in 12 months. The proportion of women in our grade 6 roles has decreased by 10.8 per cent. However, 4 female grade 6 colleagues were promoted to SCS within the 12-month reporting period. These, and other changes in our workforce demographics account for the changes in this year’s pay gap figures.
Actions taken to close the gap
Our actions over the last 12 months have included:
- trialling the use of augmented writing software to ensure our job adverts are free from gender bias language, resulting in job advertisements carefully designed to be equally engaging to all applicants
- introducing the requirement for diverse recruitment selection panels wherever possible, including mixed genders, and maintaining anonymised job applications
- introducing equality, diversity and inclusion champions across a number of protected characteristics, including gender, to help role model inclusive behaviours
- introducing a ‘senior HR officer for equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) & wellbeing’ role into the organisation to lead on and support our agreed EDI strategy
- maintaining central pay controls on starting salary across all grades
- increasing the pay band minima of EO and grade 7, which positively impacted more women than men
- carriying out analysis, broken down by protected characteristics, of end of year ratings to identify trends or discrepancies for consideration by the senior management group
Further actions to be taken
Further actions to be taken include:
- our recruitment applicant tracking system (ATS) to redact information pertaining to personal information which includes gender – hiring managers are not privy to personal information at application sift and review stage
- development of managing bias training for all managers
- commitment to a continued and increased focus on EDI throughout the organisation with sponsorship at executive level
- continued review and development of our recruitment practices and processes including asking EDI questions at interview to raise awareness
- the introduction of specific organisational wide EDI objectives within the appraisal process
- continued review of pay on appointment process to mitigate against new starters having an adverse impact on our pay gap
As a result of our work to date and our continued focus on EDI within the organisation, we remain optimistic that these actions will have a positive impact in forthcoming years.
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Gender pay gap methodology for the Civil Service now aligns with the Annual Civil Service Employment Survey, used for Civil Service Statistics. Ofqual’s Annual Report & Accounts has used a different methodology, which resulted in a differing set of statistics. From next year, we will only use the single methodology to align our reporting. ↩