By Joe Locker, Local Democracy Reporter
There are a ‘disproportionate’ number of women in the lower paid jobs at Gedling Borough Council, new figures show.
According to the Labour-run authority, women account for 62.3 per cent of all staff working in the lowest paid job roles as of March 31, 2024.
The previous year 52.2 per cent of all staff in these roles were women, compared to 48.76 per cent the year before that.
During a Joint Consultative and Safety Committee meeting on Tuesday (August 27) David Archer, the head of HR, performance and service planning, said: “A number of jobs have moved on and become more enriched as we’ve moved along with time.
“But what we are left with towards the bottom end of our pay scales are a lot of part-time jobs, predominantly in leisure services.
“Societally, as wrong as it might be, often part-time work and jobs are undertaken by women rather than men.
“For us that is what it looks like in terms of how the gender pay split is perhaps showing more women proportionally in that lower quartile than men.”
Cllr Catherine Pope (Lab), a member of the committee, added: “It troubles me a bit around this rationale around the part-time jobs because I think there’s a cause and effect quandary going on.
“Arguably why are all the part-time jobs in the lowest paid category? It would be good to see something about the ability to request part-time working across the board and that people in those part-time jobs are given the opportunity to get better paid jobs and aren’t just stuck in the lowest quartile.”
Mr Archer said the council’s aim is to enrich part-time jobs, including receptionist roles, through better training as to allow staff to conduct a wider range of tasks and increase their pay.
Any organisation that has 250 employees or more must provide gender pay gap data, as required by the Government.
The new Labour Government is now looking at requirements to extend the scrutiny to ethnicity and disability too.
According to the borough council, its average (mean) gender pay gap is within a reasonable range at 4.1 per cent.
However it has widened from 2.9 per cent in 2023 and 3.79 per cent in 2022.
Mr Archer said: “The mean gender pay gap is the one that is most often quoted in gender pay gap information.
“That is at 4.1 per cent for us this year, higher than last year, but actually lower than it has been as well [in 2021 and 2018].
“When you look at information from other similar organisations we seem to be well within what is considered to be a reasonable range.
“Anything other than zero is not something to rest your laurels on, so we need to continue to report and continue to find ways to make a difference.”
In past years the council offered bonuses when it found it difficult or impossible to recruit for some jobs.
However in 2024 the council says it managed to recruit without the need for a market supplement.
