Brent Council announces latest gender and ethnicity pay gaps

A council report showed that, in 2018/19, male employees were paid 7.2 per cent more than female employees when calculated as a mean average.

This was down from 8.2 per cent in the previous year, which the council suggested was caused by in an increase of women being part of the upper-middle pay quartile.

It added there have been a higher number of men employed in the middle-lower and lower pay quartiles, which could also have contributed to the change.

Last year, Brent Council’s head of human resources, Martin Williams, said the council will do “all it can to close the gender pay gap and get it down to zero”.

He noted there will be a push to ensure that both groups receive the same starting salaries since there is “anecdotal evidence” that men ask for more money than women.

Despite there being no statutory obligation to do so, the council also recorded its ethnicity pay gap for last year in the spirit of “full transparency”.

Black, Asian and ethnic minority (BAME) employees were paid 16.4 per cent less than white employees – when calculated as a mean average – though this was down from 17.3 per cent in 2017/18.

The council attributed this to an increase in the number of BAME employees in the upper pay quartile

However, the median average jumped from 14.2 per cent to 18.2 per cent, which was possibly due to the shift in the number of BAME employees working in the lower pay quartiles as opposed to the upper-middle one.

A statement from the report explained the council will “continue to promote management development, apprenticeships, mentoring programmes and disability awareness initiatives as a means to support and encourage career advancement amongst the gender, ethnicity and disability characteristic groups”.

It also urged its employees to disclose as much information as possible with regards to their ethnic background to enable it to obtain a more accurate picture of the situation.