The Employment and Human Rights Committee (“EHRC”) has published a list naming and shaming 47 employers who have failed to submit their gender pay gap reports this year.
The EHRC has confirmed that it has written to the organisations to confirm that it is going to investigate their non-compliance to determine whether they are breaking the law and if they are they will be compelled to publish their figures immediately. Should they fail to do so they will be issued with a formal notice, which can be enforced in court, and may also receive an unlimited fine.
This news comes off the back of the ECHR publicly naming three organisations earlier this month who had failed to report on time for two consecutive years and demonstrates a clear intent by the ECHR to pursue those businesses who do not comply.
So what is gender pay gap reporting?
Back in 2017 the Government announced the introduction of gender pay gap reporting which it hoped would help promote gender equality in the workplace by shining a light on gender pay disparity. The Regulations require all businesses with 250+ employees to publish the following information on an annual basis:
- Mean pay gap between male and female employees
- Median pay gap between male and female employees
- Details of the number of men and women working across salary quartiles
- Mean bonus pay gap between male and female employees
The reports have to be published on an organisation’s own website and remain on there for three years to enable progress to be monitored as subsequent reports are added over the years. Organisations must also submit evidence of compliance to the Government which will involve uploading the report to a government website where it can be accessed by the public.
Comment
We will have to wait and see how far the EHRC are prepared to go in terms of pursuing individual organisations for any non-compliance. Whilst some have been sceptical of the EHRC’s enforcement powers, it is interesting to note that the public shaming of the three repeat offenders has already resulted in them submitting their reports. As such, it may be the policy of naming and shaming is enough to “encourage” these 47 organisations to publish their reports given the significant reputational damage they are now exposed to. Only time will tell.
