Ethnicity Pay Gap Statistics - March 2024
Unlike the gender pay gap there is no legal requirement to calculate or disclose ethnicity pay gap data. However we have decided to calculate this to mark our commitment to diversity and inclusion.
Government has given advice on how to best to combine different ethnic groups to protect confidentiality and comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) as it must not be possible to identify an individual. They state that for information that will be published externally a wise minimum category size (based on current good practice from publishers of statistics like the ONS) for each ethnic group would be 50 people.
As a relatively small employer we have therefore aggregated to two groups (binary reporting) as we have less than 50 employees who have identified as an ethnicity other than white. The profile of all our ethnic minority employees has been combined to ‘other’ which is a term short for ‘all other ethnic groups combined’ in line with Government advice on terminology.
What is a ethnicity pay gap?
The ethnicity pay gap shows the difference in average pay between white employees and 'other' ethnicities.
A percentage of 15% would show ‘other’ ethnicities earn 15% less than white employees per hour’. If the figure was -15% it would mean ‘other’ ethnicities earn 15% more than white employees per hour’.
As with the gender pay gap, it is different to equal pay, which is a legal requirement to pay everyone the same for equal or similar work.
Our data - 31 March 2024
Mean (average) ethnicity pay gap in hourly pay: -1.4%
Median (mid-point) ethnicity pay gap in hourly pay: -10.2%
| Pay quartile | White | Other | Not Known |
|---|---|---|---|
| Top | 93.4 | 5.9 | 0.7 |
| Upper middle | 87.6 | 9.5 | 2.9 |
| Lower middle | 93.4 | 6.6 | 0.0 |
| Lower | 93.4 | 5.9 | 0.7 |
What do our calculations mean?
For both average and mid-point calculations, ‘other’ ethnicities earn more than white employees per hour.
Many of the ‘other’ ethnic employees we have are professionally qualified – mostly in Port Health and Housing with a few higher paid earners also in Legal and Planning.
Previously 10.6% of employees had not disclosed their ethnicity (56 people) so we contacted them to advise why we collect this data, what we plan to do with it and why accurate data is needed to support targeted work that advances diversity and inclusion. Following this refresh the unknown percentage has been brought down to and stayed at 1.1% (6 people).
Our pay structure, policies, recruitment procedures and training programme are set without bias to race or any other personal characteristic.
