A leading official at Reading Borough Council has suggested the council’s gender pay gap for employees could be closed in the next few years.

The  gender and ethnic minority pay gaps for employees of the council on an hourly basis in 2021 were laid out at a recent meeting.

At Reading Borough Council, the mean gender pay gap is 2.06 per cent, which means that, on average, women earn 2.06 per cent less than men if they are employees of the council.

Men on average earn £16.68 per hour, whereas women earn £16.33, meaning men earn 35p more per hour.

That is despite 58.7 per cent of council staff being women.

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Shella Smith, the council’s assistant director of human resources (HR) and personal development, argued the council is in a good position, as the mean pay gap for the whole economy stands at 15.4 per cent.

The ethnic minority pay gap was also published by the council, showing the mean gender pay gap is 4.26 per cent.

That means that Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) employees typically earn less than their White colleagues.

However, the accuracy of the data is imperfect as the council’s ethnicity disclosure rate is not at 100 per cent, currently standing at 94.4 per cent.

Those with undisclosed ethnicities were excluded from the calculations in line with the Government regulations for gender pay.

Although publishing an ethnic minority pay gap is not a legal requirement officers and councillors felt it was important in the interests of transparency.

Councillor Jason Brock (Labour, Southcote) leader of Reading Borough Council, said: “I think it’s a really good thing that we publish an Ethnicity Pay Gap, it’s very important that we do so.”

Although Black employees of the council get paid less than their White colleagues, Asian employees typically get paid more than both groups.

Addressing this, cllr Brock said: “Whilst our Asian and Asian British have a negative pay gap, that’s different for our Black and Black British colleagues.

“We want the council to be a place where people have excellent jobs and are fairly remunerated for that work.”

On average the council’s Asian or Asian British employees earn £17.32 per hour, which is 4.87 per cent higher than the  £16.51 per hour Whites typically earn.

Meanwhile, Black or Black British employees on average earn £14.50 per hour, which is 12.21 per cent less than the average for Whites.

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Councillor Jeannette Skeats (Conservative, Thames), who had until recently been the leader of the Conservatives on the council, asked whether there would be a time frame for when the gender pay gap would be closed.

Shella Smith replied that the council aspires to close the pay gap in the next few years, and information for how that can be achieved is contained in its Corporate Plan.

These points were raised at a meeting of the council’s Personnel Committee yesterday (Wednesday, March 16).

You can view tweet coverage of it here: 

The committee also approved staff pay policies, bullying and harassment policy, and its shift and unsociable hours allowance policy at the meeting.

He added that the council has worked “constructively” with unions on the policies that were agreed.