Gender Pay Gap Reporting: key changes between draft and final regulations

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"Snapshot date" (previously called "relevant date")

30 April 2017

5 April 2017

First required reporting date

29 April 2018

4 April 2018

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Who is a "relevant employer" for the purposes of the reporting requirements?

Person who has 250 or more employees on the relevant date.

Person who has 250 or more employees on the snapshot date. Public sector employers are now expressly excluded but are expected to be covered by similar legislative provisions in due course. 

The explanatory notes state that "employment" is as defined under section 83 of the Equality Act 2010, which includes employment under a contract of employment, a contract of apprenticeship or any other contract personally to do work (that is, workers are included).

Reporting requirements apply to each separate legal entity with at least 250 employees within a group structure.  

Who is treated as a "relevant employee" for the purposes of the reporting requirements?

Someone "who ordinarily works in Great Britain and whose contract of employment is governed by UK legislation".

A person who is employed by the relevant employer on the snapshot date  but excluding partners in firms including members of LLPs. Note that:

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Meaning of "ordinary pay" (simply referred to as "Pay" in the first draft) as used to calculate an employee's hourly rate of pay.

Treatment of bonus pay.

Meaning of allowances.

All bonus pay paid in the relevant pay period was included in the definition of pay.

Language has been modernised. Substantive changes include that bonus is no longer included in the definition of "ordinary pay", but a proportion of bonus may need to be added to the ordinary pay figure to carry out the "hourly rate of pay" calculation.

"Allowances" is extended to any sum paid with respect to the recruitment and retention of an employee.

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Meaning of "bonus pay".

A non–exhaustive definition, which included:

Confusing references to bonuses received and earned have been removed. Bonus pay is now defined as remuneration in the form of money, vouchers, securities, securities options, or interests in securities relating to profit sharing, productivity, performance, incentive or commission.

Piecework is now dealt with as part of ordinary pay.

It is now also clear that elements of bonuses which are awarded as securities, securities options and interests in securities are to be treated as paid at the point in time when they would give rise to taxable earnings or taxable specific income.

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Mean pay

The difference in mean hourly pay of male and female relevant employees.

The difference between the mean hourly pay of male full-pay relevant employees and female full-pay relevant employees.

Median pay

The difference in median hourly pay of male and female relevant employees.

The difference between the median hourly pay of male full-pay relevant employees and female full-pay relevant employees.

Mean bonus pay

The difference in mean bonus pay during the period of 12 months preceding 30 April between male and female relevant employees.

The difference between the mean bonus pay paid to male relevant employees and female relevant employees during the 12-month period ending 5 April.

Median bonus pay

Not included.

The difference between the median bonus pay paid to male relevant employees and female relevant employees during the 12-month period ending 5 April.

Proportions for bonus pay

The proportions of male and female relevant employees who received bonus pay during the period of 12 months preceding the 30 April.

The proportions of male and female relevant employees paid a bonus during the 12-month period ending with 5 April.

Proportions in relevant pay quartiles

The number of male and female relevant employees in quartile bands A,B,C,and D.

Meaning of "pay quartiles" not defined. Confusion over whether this was to be calculated by dividing the workforce into four equal sized groups or by dividing the overall pay distribution into four equal proportions.

The proportions of male and female full-pay relevant employees in the lower, lower middle, upper middle and upper quartile pay bands.

Four new steps to work out the proportion of men and women in each pay quartile.

Quartiles are calculated by ranking the employees in order of hourly rate of pay and dividing into four, with equal numbers of employees.

If there are multiple relevant employees on the same hourly rate of pay such that they would fall within more than one quartile, the employer must ensure that the relative proportion of male and female employees receiving that rate of pay is the same in each of those pay bands.

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Period for taking snapshot date for pay reporting purposes

Period in respect of which the employer usually pays the relevant employee, whether weekly, fortnightly, monthly or a longer or shorter period  within which 30 April falls.

Period in respect of which the employer usually pays the employee basic pay, whether weekly, fortnightly, monthly or any other period within which 5 April falls. If no basic pay, the period in respect of which the employer most frequently pays the employee one of the other elements of ordinary pay within which 5 April falls.

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How to work out gross hourly rate of pay for comparison purposes

Simply defined as "the weekly pay divided by weekly basic paid hours for each relevant employee".

The Regulations now set out a detailed, six-step method by which employers must calculate employees' gross hourly pay. They use an employee's normal working hours where applicable, and adopt a 12-week reference period for employees whose working hours vary from week to week.

For  calculating the gross hourly pay:

Bonuses paid during the snapshot pay period

Bonuses paid during the snapshot pay period included.

Criticised as it is common for bonuses in respect of a whole year to be paid in a single payment and, if that payment fell within the relevant pay period for calculating the gender pay gap, this could significantly distort the figures.

Under step three for calculating employees' gross hourly pay, only a portion of a bonus payment that is proportionate to the relevant pay period should be included for the purposes of determining the employer's mean and median gender pay gap. However, for employers who pay bonuses in April, this does still mean that there will be an element of double reporting in respect of bonus pay.

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Publication on employer's website

On an employer's website in the UK. It must be:

On an employer's website. It must be:

(There is no requirement that the website be a UK website, and the express reference to "in English" has been removed).

Publication on Government designated website

Upload the information required to a website designated by Secretary of State.

Publish on a website designated by Secretary of State:

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Penalties for non-compliance

None.

Failure to comply will constitute an "unlawful act" within the meaning of section 34 of the Equality Act 2006, which empowers the Equality and Human Rights Commission to take enforcement action.