Transparency data

Ofsted's gender pay gap report 2017

Published 28 February 2018

1. Introduction

From April 2017, employers with 250 or more employees must publish their gender pay gap. The pay gap must be reported on in six 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 gender pay gap shows the difference in the average earnings between all men and women in an organisation. It is different to equal pay, which is concerned with the difference in 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 pay 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.

2. Ofsted’s gender profile

Our overall percentage of female staff (gender profile), at 63%, is higher than the Civil Service average of 54% and the UK average of 51%.

Female representation at senior civil servant (SCS) level, at 45%, is also higher than the Civil Service average of 42%.

We operate a spot rate pay model. This means that salaries are set for each grade. This removes the pay inequality that can arise from the ability to negotiate salaries or through having pay ranges linked to length of service (see annex A for Ofsted grading structure). It therefore supports equal pay for equal work.

3. Ofsted’s gender pay gap

Mean gender pay gap	8.1% in favour of men
Median gender pay gap	2.3% in favour of men
Mean bonus gender pay gap	20.6% in favour of men (an average of £196)
Median bonus gender pay gap	16.7% in favour of men (an average of £100)
Proportion receiving bonus	Men 70.7% Women 62.2%

The proportions of male and female employees in each pay quartile

Grades	Female %	Male %
Lower	64%	36%
Lower middle	65%	35%
Upper middle	68%	32%
Upper	54%	46%

4. Analysis of Ofsted’s gender pay gap data

Analysis of Ofsted’s gender pay gap shows that the main reason for the mean gender pay gap of 8.1% is the proportion of male and female employees in different grades:

• Although there are more women than men in each grade (except SCS pay band 2, which only has 12 employees), overall there are more women in more junior grades, where pay is lower.

• There are more men in the upper pay quartiles, where the pay is higher compared with the lower pay quartiles.

• In particular, there are 243 employees in the B1 inspector grade (16% of the Ofsted workforce) and 83% of these are female. This reflects the demographic of the social care and early years sectors from which we recruit to posts in this grade.

Ofsted’s gender pay gap – 8.1% mean; 2.3% median – compares favourably with the Civil Service pay gap of 11% mean; 12.7% median (Office for National Statistics (ONS), 31 March 2017).

5. Taking action

We are committed to fair pay irrespective of gender and to improving our gender pay gap.

We will continue to promote policies and initiatives to support equal opportunities for our entire workforce.

We will continue to support staff who have caring responsibilities through flexible working practices and procedures.

We will ensure that women continue to have the opportunity to progress in their careers through development conversations with their line managers, bespoke succession planning for those in SCS feeder grades and talent management schemes such as ‘Women in Leadership’.

Our recently introduced Smarter Working Board will focus on ensuring that Ofsted has the right tools, systems and processes in place to support colleagues in working flexibly.

We will increase the transparency of how our performance-related pay is applied by publishing the distribution of awards through a dashboard, which will be shared with all staff. By sharing this information, we hope to encourage more open discussions about the use of the reward schemes and increase transparency of how it is applied.

We will explore how we can attract more men into our workforce to create a more even gender balance, given that we have more women at most levels of our organisation. We will consider this specifically for our administrative, professional and technical (APT) workforce.

6. Annex A: Ofsted’s grading structures

APT grading structure

Civil Service (CS) grade equivalent	Grade
Grade 6	Principal Officer
Grade 7	London A APT National A APT
SEO	London B1 APT National B1 APT
HEO	London B2 APT National B2 APT
EO	London B3 APT National B3 APT
AO	London C1 APT National C1 APT

Inspector grading structure

CS grade equivalent	Grade
Grade 6	Senior HMI
Grade 7	HMI RIM
SEO	B1 Inspector

Apprentice grading structure

CS grade equivalent	Grade
AO	London C1 Apprentice National C1 Apprentice

1. ‘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.

   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. ↩