Academies: Gender Pay Gap

Baroness Watkins of Tavistock Excerpts

Wednesday 25th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, perhaps I should address the Inspiration Trust first, as I was indeed its founder. The chief executive took on 14 schools, seven of which were in special measures when we took them on. All are now out of special measures. Thousands of children are getting a better education than they were five years ago, and that is the essence of what autonomy of pay is all about. Where we have excess pay and there is poor performance, as I said to the noble Lord, Lord Storey, I am bearing down on that. No one is more messianic about the misallocation of taxpayers’ money, but we need to strike a balance between autonomy, where good teachers and good leaders are given the chance to develop and improve schools, and those who are not good are held to account.

[Baroness Watkins of Tavistock (CB)]

My Lords, how does the Minister think that some of the questions that we have heard so far address the gender pay gap? I believe that the gender pay gap in academy schools—I declare my interest, having been a chair of two and currently a trustee of one—is associated with the subjects that each gender teaches; in other words, people who teach physics are traditionally paid significantly more than those who teach arts. That shows that we undervalue some subjects in these schools.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, unfortunately there is a market in different skills and professions. We know that we have a shortage of good physics teachers, and in order to bring physics teachers into the profession we need to offer additional incentives. However, looking more broadly across the gender pay gap, academies do not look as bad as people might suggest. For example, while in the top quartile men occupy 23% of the total workforce but have 32% of the jobs, the situation in the middle quartile is almost even, with men occupying 23% of the workforce and only 25% of them having upper-middle jobs. Therefore, I think that we are seeing great progress on this. It is also worth pointing out more generally that in 1997 the gender pay gap stood at 17.4%. Today, it has been reduced to 9.1%. I do not suggest that that is enough but it shows that we are making progress across our economy.