Transparency data

UKEF gender pay gap report 2016 to 2017

Published 18 December 2017

1. Gender pay gap

Earlier this year, 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 2018 [and then annually], 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.

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 a number of issues to deal with, and the individual calculations may help to identify what those issues are.

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.

UK Export Finance supports the fair treatment and reward of all staff irrespective of gender.

This report sets out the figures in more detail and what we are doing to close the gender pay gap in the organisation.

2. Gender make-up of the department

As of 31 March 2017, the department had 264 employees, of which 36% were women. 4% of UKEF employees are graded Senior Service Servants; of these 20% are women.

3. UKEF’s gender pay gap

UKEF uses Civil Service grades ranging from Administrative Assistant (admin level grade) to Senior Civil Servant (executive level grade). Grades vary according to the level of responsibility that staff have. Each grade has a set pay range with pay gaps in between grades.

UKEF’s pay gap is slightly higher than the Civil Service pay gap of 10.6% (mean) and 12.7% (median) as published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in July 2017.

	Mean pay gap (ordinary pay)	Median pay gap (ordinary pay)
Pay gap	15.97%	16.26%

4. Bonus pay

UKEF’s performance awards were paid as a set value depending on grade and performance level.

	Mean pay gap (bonus pay)	Median pay gap (bonus pay)
Bonus pay	22.36%	7.80%

The bonus gaps show that there is a pay gap between men and women using both the mean and median average. This is due to the larger number of male employees at higher grades.

• 46% of males received a bonus
• 51 % of females received a bonus

The difference between male and female employees receiving a bonus was small, however, more women as a percentage of the female workforce received a bonus award compared to that of their male counterparts (51% of women, compared to 46% of men).

5. Pay by quartiles

The gender split of males and females across UKEF is 64% male and 36% female. With the exception of the lower quartile where there is equal representation of male and female workers, the remaining three quartiles are consistent with UKEF’s total split of male and female workers.

5.1 Hourly pay quartiles

The gender split in the lower quartile is fairly even at 53% female to 47% male; compared to the overall split of 36% female to 64% male, it indicates that a high proportion of the lower quartile is made up of UKEF’s female staff. The split in the other three quartiles more closely reflects the overall split, and in the case of the upper middle almost exactly. A higher proportion of the lower middle and upper quartiles are made up of men than UKEF as a whole.

Gender	Lower quartile	Lower middle quartile	Upper middle quartile	Upper quartile
Male	47%	72%	64%	73%
Female	53%	28%	36%	27%

6. Work on closing the gender pay gap

In October 2017, the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy 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 UKEF, wants to create a diverse and representative workplace – one that will attract talented people from all backgrounds, and give everyone, including those already working for us, the opportunity to achieve their potential.

In support of this, the department is developing its own Diversity & Inclusion Action Plan that will focus on 4 themes: Leadership, Talent, Recruitment and Culture. The UKEF D&I Action Plan will be linked to the overarching People Plan; with a potential link to the Values and Behaviours strand. The People Plan is a vision to make UKEF a GREAT place to work across 7 cross cutting themes.

The department and the senior leadership team are committed to closing our gender pay gap, and this year UKEF became a signatory to the Women in Finance Charter.

In addition to the above, the department has adopted a number of initiatives to reduce the gender pay gap. These include:

• reviewing our recruitment processes, focusing on how to attract women into the Senior Civil Service, anonymising the application process to reduce unconscious bias and ensuring all interviewers have undergone unconscious bias training
• active support for women returning to work following maternity or adoption leave. We offer shared parental leave, job share or part time opportunities, and have refreshed our guidance to help line managers ensure those returning from maternity/adoption leave feel supported and welcomed
• talent management and support for female staff progression, through programmes such as Crossing Thresholds and promoting attendance at the Civil Service Women into Leadership conference
• support for a staff Gender Network, alongside other diversity and inclusion networks
• training on equality and diversity is mandatory for all staff on joining and then every 2 years thereafter

7. Staff included in the gender pay gap data

1. It has not been possible to include information on contractors as we were unable to obtain the relevant pay information.
2. Information is based upon individuals employed at UKEF on 31st March 2017.
3. Information prepared and published December 2017.