Department of Health: Equal Pay
(asked on 7th December 2016) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what plans his Department has to publish information on the gender pay gap among its employees.
The Department has reported mean and median gender pay gap data since 2008 as part of the annual release of Civil Service Statistics by the Office for National Statistics.
The latest gender pay gap data (published in October earlier this year) can be found on the Office for National Statistics website:
In October 2015, the then Prime Minister announced that new gender pay gap reporting measures being introduced across the private and voluntary sector from April 2017 would be extended to also apply across the public sector. The Department is actively working to ensure the gender pay gap data reported in future fully mirror these new requirements.
The Civil Service has a comprehensive plan to become the most inclusive employer in the United Kingdom. This is called the Talent Action Plan and was refreshed in March 2016. The plan commits the Civil Service to a number of actions with the aim of removing barriers faced by underrepresented groups, including women, from succeeding. The plan sets out the ambition under key themes which includes recruitment and selection, talent and progression, inclusive culture and social mobility.
Key actions include ensuring single gender panels in recruitment and shortlists are now by exception only (as committed in the first publication of the Talent Action Plan) and committing the Civil Service to reviewing the way in which talent is defined and identified to ensure more inclusive ways to identify potential are developed.