Gender pay gap at Oxfordshire County Council revealed

And it appears the gender pay gap is a result of more women working in lower paid roles where there is no opportunity for promotion, like as cleaners or crossing guards.

The council has published a ‘snapshot’ of the difference in pay, as it stood on March 31, 2020, as it is duty bound to do so every year.

A report into the pay gap said: “The gender pay gap within OCC is relatively small, however while we understand that publishing the data will not in itself remove the gap, continuing to do so is the first step towards that aim and we are committed to learning from best practice as part of our journey.”

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In the council, the average or mean pay, for men is £16.71 an hour, while for women it is £16.18, with the difference being 53p.

This is a 3.18 per cent gap, and has reduced from 3.3 per cent in March 2019.

In comparison with the public sector nationwide, Oxfordshire’s gender pay gap appears to be very small, with the national average standing at 14.5 per cent.

There is a similar gap between the midpoint of pay for men and women at Oxfordshire County Council too.

The median pay – that is the halfway point between the highest and lowest pay – for men is £15.11, while for women it is £14.91, a gap of 20p, or 1.13 per cent.

Compared with the national picture, Oxfordshire appears to be much lower than the average here too, with the national median public sector gender pay gap standing at 15.8 per cent.

Women make up two thirds of the 5,153 total council workforce, and men one third.

When council employees are split evenly into four ‘quartiles’ by how much they get paid, each is roughly still made up of two thirds women to one third men.

However in the uppermost quartile, representing the highest paid council workers, there are slightly more men than the total average: 34 per cent to 65 per cent women.

And in the lowest quartile there are slightly more women: 69 per cent, to 30 per cent men.

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The report said this suggests ‘an imbalance of a large number of females in the lower paid jobs’ .

It added that there are more women working in low paid roles in cleaning, administration, school crossings, catering and customer services, and that quite often these jobs have ‘no obvious career progression route to higher earning levels’.

To address the imbalance, the report said there are plans to offer these women career development training.

The report concluded: “We will ensure that job grades continue to be determined through objective analysis and job evaluation to maintain the integrity of the pay and grading system.”

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