Camden publishes latest gender pay gap report
Camden Council has published its gender pay gap report for 2020/2021, underlining its commitment to transparency by including information on pay by gender, ethnicity, and disability.
Findings from this year’s report shows overall that the Council continues to see progress in closing pay gaps where they exist, however it believes it must go further in relation to the gap between Black, Asian and Other Ethnicity and White staff and disabled and non-disabled staff.
Key findings in this year’s pay gap report include:
- Female earnings continue to be marginally higher than male staff earnings. This gender pay gap is particularly noticeable for part-time employees, with the part-time Gender Pay Gap favouring female staff. It’s worth also highlighting that female staff form 73% of part-time employees at the Council.
- Although gaps have narrowed, the ethnicity pay gap still favours White staff. This year has seen some important improvements with the proportion of Black, Asian and other Ethnicity staff increasing at all quartiles, other than the bottom 25% of earners, and representation at Chief Officer level increasing by 9%.
- In relation to the disability pay gap, the overall figures have increased slightly since last year. Low declaration rates continue to make detailed analysis difficult, however work to improve this approach continues to be a priority area for the Council.
We are committed to creating an inclusive workplace culture where everyone can reach their full potential and be themselves. Increasing pay transparency is a topic we’ve taken a leading and visible position on for some time – we’ve been voluntarily reporting our gender, ethnicity and disability pay gap since 2015 and we are one of the few organisations in the country to do this. We believe that by shining a light on any disparity in pay you are acknowledging there is an issue and can find ways to fix it.
The ethnicity pay gap continues to be a top priority for the Council and we are pleased this year to see for the first time a more noticeable shift in closing the pay gap between staff in Black, Asian and Other Ethnicity groups and White staff. We see this as the green shoots of change resulting from the work we have done over a number of years and hope our continued focus on this sees this trend towards parity continue in future years. We know there is much more we need to do, and we will continue to take action to address pay gaps and to make sure our policies and practices are fair across the organisation.
Camden’s work to make the organisation more inclusive for disabled staff accelerated in 2020, in part due to the creation of Camden’s Staff Disability Network and the creation of Camden’s Disability Charter.
Alongside this, Camden has reviewed its Race Equality Action Plan and has taken action to further narrow ethnicity pay gaps. This includes improving guidance on pay management, extending mentoring schemes, introducing inclusive recruitment training for hiring managers as well supporting the setup of Women of Colour Progression Networks to focus on the development and progression for Black, Asian and Other Ethnicity women in the organisation.
To further support staff, the Council also has a variety of support leave options to reflect the different ways families and individuals may need to take leave, including paid leave for victims of domestic violence, additional paid leave for foster carers as well as a new scheme which offers paid leave for anyone who has experienced a pregnancy loss.
The full pay analysis is available on the council’s Open Data website: