Forward publishes 2021/22 Gender Pay Gap report

In line with Government legislation, as an organisation with over 250 ‘relevant employees’, this report covers a snapshot of our gender pay gap as of 5th April 2022.

The Forward Trust has reviewed the 6 key metric calculations as detailed by the gender pay gap guidance and can confirm the following:

Percentage of Men and Women in each hourly quarter

Pay quartiles are calculated by splitting all employees in an organisation into four even groups according to their level of pay.
The table in the attached document shows the percentage of men and women in each quartile, as well as the report in full.

When comparing these percentages to the previous years’ snapshot we are able to identify that the percentage of women in the Upper and Middle Upper quartiles has slightly increased:

• Upper Quartile 2020/21 (36.5% Males 63.5% Females)
• Upper Quartile 2021/22 (35.86% Males, 64.14% Females)

• Middle Upper 2020/21 (43.4% Males, 56.6% Females)
• Middle Upper 2021/22 (35.62% Males, 64.38% Females

We believe this slight movement relates to more females being included in senior management and executive roles as a result of the restructuring which took place in October 2021.

Notably, the Lower Middle quartile has seen more females than males compared to the previous year:

• Lower Middle 2020/21 (40.4% Males 59.6% Females)
• Lower Middle 2021/22 (26.71% Males, 73.29% Females)

Whilst the Lower quartile has seen a reduction in females when compared to the previous years’ snapshot, we believe this is due to promotions and acting up positions for females who moved from the lower quartile into the Lower Middle quartile.

• Lower 2020/21 (13.2% Males, 86.8% Females)
• Lower 2021/22 (28.96% Males, 71.03% Females)

The difference in the mean (average) hourly pay gap

The mean is calculated by adding up the wages of all relevant employees and dividing the figure by the number of employees. The mean gender pay gap is calculated based on the difference between mean male pay and mean female pay.

The pay gap percentage for this year is 12.97% in favour of Male employees compared to last years which was 8.8% also in favour of the male employee with a 4.17% increase. In comparison, the Office of National Statics figures were 8.3% in April 2022 and 7.1% in April 2021, thus, the increased gap is a trend that reaches further than within our organisation (see chart in attached document for more detail).

When trying to understand why the gap has increased, we have identified that women fill more part-time jobs, which when combined with working within lower paid roles has increased the gap.

The Median Gender Pay Gap for hourly pay

The median pay gap is the difference between the midpoints in the ranges of hourly earnings of males and females. It takes all salaries in the sample, lines them up in order from lowest to highest, and picks the middle salary for males and females to identify any gap.

The Gender pay gap percentage for the median pay is 5.11% in April 2022 with males £15.06ph and females £14.29ph. This means for every £1.00 a male employee earns a female employee earns £0.85.

For this period, the ONS has reported that the gender pay gap among all full-time employees was 8.3%, this is up from 7.7% in April 2021 but still down from 9.0% in 2019 before the pandemic.

Over the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic period, earnings estimates were affected by changes in composition of the workforce and the impact of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (furlough) making interpretation difficult; also data collection disruption and lower response rates mean that, for 2020 and 2021, data were subject to more uncertainty and should be treated with caution; we would encourage users to focus on long-term trends rather than year-on-year change (Source: the Office for National Statistics)

It is notable that whilst the ONS are reporting an increased gap of 8.3% The Forward Trusts’ gap is lower than reported. This could be because our workforce continued to work through the pandemic and were not subject to Furlough.

Percentage of men and women receiving bonus pay

Although The Forward Trust do not award bonuses generally, during the period covered by this snapshot, Forward awarded recognition awards (bonuses) to a selection of employees in acknowledgement of them working above and beyond their job descriptions.

Out of 582 employees included within the snapshot data, 54 (9.28%) received a bonus payment. Of the 54 employees who received the bonus payment 66.66% were females and 33.34% were males.

Mean (average) gender pay gap for bonus pay.

The mean is calculated by adding up the bonuses of all relevant male employee which received a bonus and dividing the figure by the number of employees and repeating for females, then subtracting females from males and working the result into a percentage.
Our analysis highlighted that the gap of -109.55% in favour of females, this means that, using the mean (average), that for every £1 bonus earned by a man at the Forward Trust, females are paid £2.09 bonus pay.

Median gender pay gap for bonus pay

Our analysis identified a gap of -71.43% in favour of females. This means that, when using the median calculation against bonus payments, women at Forward Trust received 71.43% more bonus pay than men. Therefore, for every £1 a man received in bonus pay at Forward, a woman received £1.71.

Conclusion

As a real living wage employer, the Forward Trust remunerates its employees via a pay banding system, ensuring fairness in our levels of pay with the flexibility to recognise relevant skills and experience within a pay band. We review our bands regularly against market competitors to ensure that we remain a competitive employer. We believe that this system allows us to address gender pay equality across the organisation.

We have examined our structural and cultural obstructions, which has included restructuring following a merger with Action on Addiction. This has led to a review of our Senior Management and Executive teams and has seen females promoted onto our Senior Management Team and Executive Team; with a positive knock-on effect reflected within the Upper and Upper Middle hourly pay quartiles.

In addition, we have engaged Equality, Diversity and Inclusion consultants to assist us on our journey to ensure equal opportunities exist within the organisation including our Trustee Board.

In 2022/23 we continue to remain committed to closing our gender pay gap, including the recruitment of a Head of EDI, who will report to our CEO and bring specialist knowledge into the organisation, develop specific employee forums, including a women’s forum. This in conjunction with our Town Hall meetings, we hope will continue having a positive effect in supporting, developing and educating our workforce.

Signed by

Mike Trace, Chief Executive Officer
27th March 2023

This report can also be viewed here.