Equal Pay Review Report 2018
Queen Margaret University is committed to supporting and promoting equality of opportunity for all employees.
1.2 Queen Margaret University's Equal Pay Statement
The University recognises that under the Equality Act 2010, both women and men have the right to equal pay for work of equal value; this applies to all employees regardless of full or part-time status, casual or temporary contract or length of service.
In addition to the above, the University also recognises its duty to provide equal pay for work of equal value regardless of differences in age, race, nationality, ethnic or national origin, religion, sexual orientation, marital, civil partnership, parental status or disability.
The University has in place a pay and grading system which is used to assist in determining equal pay across the University. The pay and grading system is applied transparently, based on objective criteria to ensure that it is free from unlawful bias.
The University’s policies and procedures associated with pay and remuneration have been developed and implemented with a view to eliminating unlawful bias, and are systematically monitored and reviewed.
In order to put the University’s commitment to equal pay for work of equal value into practice, the University will:
- Undertake equal pay reviews in accordance with the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) for all current staff and starting pay for new staff;
- Monitor the impact of its policies and procedures associated with pay and remuneration and take appropriate action where necessary;
- Provide guidance for managers involved in decisions about recruitment, pay, benefits and promotions.
We intend through the above action to avoid unfair discrimination and to reward fairly the skills, experience and potential of all staff.
1.2 What is an Equal Pay Review?
The purpose of an Equal Pay Review is to review statistical data relating to an organisation’s pay and Human Resources data in order to identify any gender pay differences and pay differences associated with protected characteristics and provide a set of findings and actions based on any such differences. It has been recognised that there are numerous benefits to carrying out such a review, such as eliminating pay inequalities, demonstrating the university’s commitment to equal pay and meeting the public sector equality duty.
1.3 Our Approach
The review takes into consideration employee salary data collected as at 1st August 2017. This data is broken down by the relevant areas (Academic/Professional Services), Grades, Gender and Protected Characteristics.
1.4 Methods for calculating the Pay Gap
Any difference between the mean and median pay of male and female employees is referred to as a gender ‘pay gap’, and has been calculated following the formula provided in the public sector equality duty guidelines. The gender pay gap has been calculated using the mean and median salaries and hourly pay of female employees, expressed as a percentage of the mean and median salaries of male employees doing work of equal value (same Grade). The salary data has been expressed as a full time equivalent salary, and includes those individuals who work part time hours to allow for comparison.
A positive percentage demonstrates a pay gap in favour of women and a negative percentage pay gap demonstrates a pay gap in favour of males.
The pay gap columns within each of the tables provided in Section 3 have been colour coded to highlight significant gaps as follows:
Significant negative pay gap (>5%) RED text
Non-significant pay gap (<5%) ORANGE text
According to European Human Rights Commission (EHRC) a pay gap of 5% or greater is considered to be significant.
Findings at a glance
2.1 Gender Pay Gap – All Employees (including EB)
| Women’s Earnings Are… | |
| Mean Gender Pay Gap in Annual Salary | 1.7% higher |
|---|---|
| Mean Gender Pay Gap in Hourly Pay | 1.8% higher |
| Median Gender Pay Gap in Annual Salary | 6.1% higher |
| Median Gender Pay Gap in Hourly Pay | 6.1% higher |
| 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mean Pay Gap | -0.72% | -0.37% | 1.69% |
| Median Pay Gap | 6.13% | 6.13% | 6.13% |
2.2 Gender Pay Gap – All Employees (excluding EB)
| Women’s Earnings Are… | |
| Mean Gender Pay Gap in Annual Salary | 1.5% higher |
|---|---|
| Mean Gender Pay Gap in Hourly Pay | 1.6% higher |
| Median Gender Pay Gap in Annual Salary | 6.1% higher |
| Median Gender Pay Gap in Hourly Pay | 7.2% higher |
| 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mean Pay Gap | 1.05% | 1.02% | 1.52% |
| Median Pay Gap | 9.3% | 9.3% | 6.13% |
2.3 Gender Pay Gap – Academic Staff
| Women’s Earnings Are… | |
| Mean Gender Pay Gap in Annual Salary | 4.7% lower |
|---|---|
| Mean Gender Pay Gap in Hourly Pay | 4.7% lower |
| Median Gender Pay Gap in Annual Salary | Equal to men’s pay |
| Median Gender Pay Gap in Hourly Pay | Equal to men’s pay |
| 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mean Pay Gap | 4.41% | 3.98% | -4.68% |
| Median Pay Gap | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% |
2.4 Gender Pay Gap – Professional Services Staff
| Women’s Earnings Are… | |
| Mean Gender Pay Gap in Annual Salary | 0.9% higher |
|---|---|
| Mean Gender Pay Gap in Hourly Pay | 0.9% higher |
| Median Gender Pay Gap in Annual Salary | Equal to men’s pay |
| Median Gender Pay Gap in Hourly Pay | Equal to men’s pay |
| 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mean Pay Gap | 4.93% | 2.33% | 0.86% |
| Median Pay Gap | 1.47% | 7.63% | 0.00% |
Summary Narrative
- The mean pay gap for all staff is currently 1.69% in favour of females, this represents a shift from 2016 where the mean pay gap was -0.37% in favour of males. The median pay gap has remained steady at 6.13% in favour of female employees over the last three reporting years.
- Amongst academic staff the university has a pay gap of -4.65% in favour of males, this represents a shift from previous years where the mean pay gap was in favour of females. The mean pay gap is caused by statistically significant pay gaps within grade 10 as evidenced by the median pay gap of 0% over the last three reporting years.
- Amongst professional services staff the university has a mean pay gap of 0.86% in favour of females, the gap has narrowed based on previous reporting years. The median pay gap is currently 0%.
- There are no significant negative pay gaps within Grade 1-9 when reviewing data for all staff. Negative pay gaps do exist within grade 10. Significant negative pay gaps exist at grade 10 when looking at mean (5.89%) and median (5.90%) calculations.
- No significant pay gaps exist within professional services when data is analysed by grade.
- When analysing data by gender and full/part time status for all staff there are no significant negative pay gap. However, amongst academic staff a significant negative pay gap exists when comparing the mean pay gap (6.9%) and the median pay gap (8.46%) of male full time staff and female full time staff.
- BME, LGBT and declared disabled populations are all paid less when compared with the wider employee population, both from a mean and median calculation. It should be recognised however that the ethnicity and sexual orientation employee data is not wholly reliable on the basis that large percentage of the population is declared as unknown. Additional work needs to be carried out to address this.
- Female staff within the 16-24 and 25-34 age groups are paid significantly less than male staff within the same age category.
Detailed Findings
3.1 Gender Pay Gap Analysis by Grade – All Staff
3.2 Gender Pay Gap Analysis by Grade – Academic Staff
3.3 Gender Pay Gap Analysis – Professional Services Staff
3.5 Gender Pay Gap Analysis – Full Time/Part Time – All Staff
3.6 Gender Pay Gap Analysis – Full Time/Part Time – Academic Staff
3.6 Gender Pay Gap Analysis – Full Time/Part Time – Professional Services Staff
3.7 Pay Gap Analysis – BME staff
3.8 Pay Gap Analysis – Staff Declaring a Disability
3.9 Pay Gap Analysis – LGBT Staff
3.10 Pay Gap Analysis - All staff by Age Group
Plans to Address Gender Pay Gaps
Actions to achieve this will include:
1. Promote HR initiatives, ‘Aurora’, Athena SWAN, ‘DEVELOP’, Disability Confident Scheme and Performance Enhancement Reviews to support female career development.
2. Ensure that our revised Reward and Recognition Policy and Procedure provides transparent process for reward and promotion of staff
3. Train managers to raise awareness of issues relating to occupational segregation and gender pay gaps, whilst continuing to promote E-learning Unconscious Bias training to all managers and recruitment and selection panellists.
4. Work with the Equality and Diversity committee to actively encourage those employees with a protected characteristic to declare this to the university.
For further information, please view QMU's Equality and Diversity Page.
