2 March 2016

The gender pay gap

The Government has issued for consultation the draft Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2016, which will introduce mandatory gender pay gap reporting on an annual basis for private and voluntary sector employers with 250 or more employees.

The Regulations are scheduled to come into force on 1 October 2016 and will require employers to calculate gender pay gaps using data from a specific pay period that contains the relevant date, which is every 30 April from 2017 onwards. Employers will then have 12 months beginning with the relevant date in which to publish the information.

In practice, this means that the first publication deadline will be April 2018.

A summary of the requirements and a copy of the draft Regulations can be found here.

Whilst the legislation will only apply to organisations with more than 250 employees, smaller employers could still face equal pay legal challenges where pay structures are not transparent.