Gender pay gap report
The gender pay gap report outlines our ongoing efforts to achieve gender equality in the workplace.
Equality, diversity and inclusion team
Report period: 1st April 2022 - 31st March 2023
Date of report produced: March 2024
Background
Gender pay gap reporting is different to equal pay. Equal pay deals with the pay differences between men and women who carry out the same jobs, similar jobs or work of equal value. It is unlawful to pay people unequally for the same, or same type, of work because they are a man or a woman.
Gender pay gap legislation on the other hand requires employers with 250 or more employees to publish statutory calculations every year showing how large the pay gap is between their male and female employees.
The NHS terms and conditions of service handbook contain the national agreements on pay and conditions of service for NHS staff other than very senior managers and medical staff.
Job evaluation enables jobs to be matched to national job profiles and allows EEAST to evaluate jobs locally, to determine in which agenda for change pay band a post should sit. This helps to ensure equal pay for the same type of roles whether the employee is male or female.
The gender pay gap indicators
An employer must publish six calculations showing their:
- Average gender pay gap as a mean average.
- Average gender pay gap as a median average.
- Proportion of males and females when divided into four groups (quartiles) ordered from lowest to highest pay.
- Average bonus gender pay gap as a mean.
- Average bonus gender pay gap as a median.
- Proportion of males receiving a bonus payment and proportion of females receiving a bonus payment.
Executive summary
This report looks at the hourly gender pay gap in EEAST for the reporting period 31st March 2022 until 31st March 2023.
- On 31st March 2022, EEAST employed 5906 full time equivalent (FTE) staff.
- For gender pay gap reporting, we do not only need to know what most people earn – the median – but also how the outliers affect the overall distribution of pay between men and women – the mean.
The median gender pay gap figure
This is the difference between the hourly pay of the median man and the hourly pay of the median woman. The median for each is the man or woman who is in the middle of a list of hourly pay ordered from highest to lowest paid.
A median involves listing all the numbers in numerical order. If there is an odd number of results, the median is the middle number. If there is an even number of results, the median will be the mean of the two central numbers.
Medians are useful to indicate what the ‘typical’ situation is. They are not distorted by very high or low hourly pay (or bonuses). However, this means that not all gender pay gap issues will be picked up. They could also fail to pick up as effectively where the gender pay gap issues are most pronounced in the lowest paid or highest paid employees.
The mean (average) gender pay gap figure
The mean gender pay gap figure uses hourly pay of all employees to calculate the difference between the mean hourly pay of men, and the mean hourly pay of women.
A mean involves adding up all the numbers and dividing the result by how many numbers were in the list.
Mean averages are useful because they place the same value on every number they use, giving a good overall indication of the gender pay gap. But very high or low hourly pay can ‘dominate’ and distort the figure.
The gender pay gap figures for EEAST
Workforce gender split
- women: 3019 (51%)
- men: 2887 (49%)
- total: 5906 (100%)
Hourly gender pay gap
- mean: 7.5
- median: 7.2
When comparing mean (average) hourly pay, women’s mean hourly pay is 75% lower than men’s. When comparing the median hourly pay, women earn 93p for every £1 that men earn. The median hourly pay is 7.2% lower than men’s.
Gender profile by pay quartile
The table below shows the number of staff by quartile on 31st March 2023, the snapshot date for gender pay gap reporting.
| Quartile | Women | Men |
|---|---|---|
| Lower quartile | 837 | 638 |
| Lower middle quartile | 844 | 633 |
| Upper middle quartile | 732 | 745 |
| Upper quartile | 606 | 871 |
The table below shows the percentage of women in each pay quarter. Women occupy 41% of the highest paid jobs and 56.7% of the lowest paid jobs.
| Pay quarter | Women | Men |
|---|---|---|
| Upper hourly pay quarter (highest paid) | 41% | 59% |
| Upper middle hourly pay quarter | 49.6% | 50.4% |
| Lower middle hourly pay quarter | 57% | 42.9% |
| Lower hourly pay quarter (lowest paid) | 56.7% | 43.3% |
NB: No bonuses paid in the period
EEAST gender pay gap long term actions
- To analyse data to review communication/language to ensure it is gender neutral.
- Increase transparency on recruitment, promotion, pay and reward process.
- To regularly monitor and report on male/female applicants to improve the recruitment process and ensure recruiting managers receive training to enable this.
- To develop and promote good maternity, paternity policies, and practices.
- To improve all staff recruitment and retention through flexible working by improving work/life balance.
- To provide career pathways and develop internal female staff to improve successful application into leadership roles and to receive recognition.
- To analyse and understand the reasons behind our figures and to identify trends.
