A small, but important, measure which was championed by the Liberal Democrats in the Coalition Government, came into effect last week. When Jo Swinson was Minister for Equalities, she introduced the requirement for companies with more than 250 employees to report on their gender pay gap (the difference between what men get paid and what women get paid).

In this article in on the Huffington Post website, Jo Swinson explains that the gender pay gap is not the same as equal pay:

“The media often mangles the distinction, so it’s not surprising many people confuse the two concepts. Equal Pay is when men and women are paid the same for doing the same work, and this has been a legal requirement for more than four decades. The Gender Pay Gap compares the average hourly pay for men and women. So most companies have a Gender Pay Gap driven by a concentration of men in senior, higher paid roles and women in junior, lower paid roles, but may not have an Equal Pay problem.”

She goes on to say:
“Transparency on the numbers means staff, shareholders and customers can hold companies to account on progress, so communicate with them your analysis of the problem and what you plan to do.

Gender pay gap reporting is not a panacea, but it is an important and helpful tool to bring urgency and accountability to efforts to tackle the entrenched problems of gender inequality in the workplace”.