‘Still significant work to do’ as Bristol City Council pay gaps revealed

Bristol City Council’s gender pay gap is at its highest level for five years while Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) staff received 10 per cent less than white British colleagues.

The difference between the amount the authority’s male and female employees earn has hovered around four per cent since 2016, and a new annual report reveals that has widened slightly for the second year running.

As of March 31, 2020, the mean average hourly wage was £16.05 for men and £15.37 for women, a gap of 4.26 per cent, up from 4.08 per cent the previous year and 3.99 per cent in 2018.

The race pay difference was 9.78 per cent, having fallen from 12.62 per cent 12 months earlier and 15.38 per cent in 2017.

But this varies enormously between ethnic groups, with Chinese employees earning 4.4 per cent more than white British but Somali workers receiving 29.4 per cent less – almost a third.

Staff with disabilities were paid 1.37 per cent less than able-bodied colleagues, down from 1.97 per cent, while the lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) wage gap was reported for the first time, at 2.04 per cent.

The council says it has set out a series of measures to narrow the disparities, including positive action and “new stretching diversity targets” to increase the number of BAME, disabled and female senior managers.

Although the rise in the gender pay gap is small, the last time it was as high was in 2015 when it stood at 5.47 per cent.

But the median salary difference – comparing the mid-point value of payments for each of the sexes – dropped from 8.9 per cent in 2019 to 8.53 per cent, having halved from 18.1 per cent in 2015.

The figures place the city council mid-table among the country’s biggest unitary authorities but leading the way for the public sector in the city.

Bristol’s mean gender pay gap of 4.26 per cent compares with eight per cent for Manchester and 1.4 per cent for Sheffield, while its median average of 8.53 per cent is lower only than Leeds’ 10.4 per cent while Nottingham has zero difference between men and women.

Locally the mean pay gaps on March 31, 2020, were 9.4 per cent for Avon & Somerset Police, 11.2 per cent for UWE, 14.5 per cent for Avon & Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust, 18.3 per cent for the University of Bristol, 20.6 per cent for University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Trust (UHBW) and 23.5 per cent for North Bristol NHS Trust, although the latter two hospital trusts have much lower median average differences, as low as 1.4 per cent for UHBW.

The council says there is still significant work to do to narrow current disparities – photo courtesy of Bristol City Council

A report to the council’s human resources committee said: “The mean gender pay gap is significantly lower than that of the national average, which is currently 17.2 per cent.

“The median gender pay gap is also significantly lower than the national average of 17.3 per cent.

“Our findings show higher levels of female representation in lower graded part-time roles with women forming the majority of staff in the two lower earnings quartiles.”

It said a significant number of the lowest paid jobs traditionally offered more flexible working which had been “an attraction for women for a number of work/life balance reasons”.

“The number of care, cleaning and administrative roles in the lower quartile has therefore had an impact on the overall gender pay gap figure,” the report said.

It said the results were affected by the fact 88 women were on lower pay because of maternity leave on the “snapshot” date when the data was recorded, compared with just 11 employees in 2019.

But it added: “There is a negative gender pay gap for women in senior roles within the pay structure, ie, women are more likely to be paid more than men in senior roles.”

Members were told the authority had the lowest ethnicity pay gap among the small number of Core Cities comparators that publish the data, although white British staff earned £15.85 an hour on average compared with £14.30 for BAME colleagues.

The 1.37 per cent disability pay gap – £15.61 for able-bodied employees versus £15.40 for disabled – is far below the Trade Union Congress estimate of 19.6 per cent across the UK and nine per cent in the South West.

Head of HR Mark Williams told the meeting: “We have seen a small increase in the gender pay gap which is disappointing but it’s only a small increase.

“We encourage work/life balance and we have many staff who work part-time and a significant proportion are women.

“That does impact the way the pay gap is reported.

“Our race gap has fallen. We still have a significant amount of work to do. We are on the journey. The key is what we are doing about this.

“We are introducing succession planning to make the changes we need in senior levels of the organisation.

“We are asking directors to review the diversity of their teams and produce strategies to make change and create opportunities for people to move on and for people within the organisation to replace them.”

Kerry Bailes, a Labour councillor for Hartcliffe, said the pay gap for Somali staff was “huge”.

She said: “A lot of the Somali workforce are cleaners, they have worked quite a lot harder than usual over the last 18 months.

“I imagine they’ve earned a pay rise. A 29 per cent pay gap does not seem like the living wage compared to everyone else. That’s really not fair.”

Steve Pearce, a Labour councillor for St George, said: “Clearly the pandemic has illustrated to us that some jobs are worth an awful lot more than they are paid and we have all been at the mercy of the cleaning regimes in society for the last 18 months.

“It’s a bit like care workers, we have not really appreciated them until we have needed them, so perhaps job valuation needs a slightly sharper focus, which you know is going to be incredibly popular upstairs.”

Adam Postans is a local democracy reporter for Bristol

 Main photo by Martin Booth

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