Question

To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, with reference to the Answer of 14 April 2016 to Question 904452, what assessment she has made of the merits of the Government's forthcoming legislation to tackle the disparity between the number of men and women in senior and higher paying management roles.

This Government is introducing ground breaking gender pay transparency for larger employers. Employers will report on four measures including the proportions of men and women working across their pay distribution. This means identifying where men and women are in the organisational pay hierarchy, and motivating employers to address any issues that limit women’s progression.

Since we announced the introduction of gender pay gap reporting, it is encouraging that over one third of the large employers are now responding to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development poll, which has already begun to prepare for the forthcoming annual reporting by starting to run some analysis now. We will be providing a package of support to employers to help them implement the gender pay reporting regulations. We have already published a ‘Trailblazing Transparency’ best practice report on gov.uk earlier this year and provided guidance on what sort of supporting analysis an employer could do as part of our ‘Think, Act, Report’ framework. This can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/think-act-report

Gender pay gap legislation is part of a range of wider action we are taking on women’s progression. That is why the Government appointed Sir Philip Hampton and Dame Helen Alexander to lead an independent review, which is focusing on the representation of women in the most senior executive layers of the FTSE 350, as well as championing the increased target for 33% women on FTSE 350 boards by 2020.