Counting the cost: Understanding your ethnicity pay gap guide
The Office for National Statistics highlights that ‘Black, African, Caribbean or Black British employees earned less (£13.53) median gross hourly pay than white employees (£14.35)’, a trend that has been consistent since 2012.
The ethnicity pay gap is the difference between the average (mean and median) hourly pay of ethnic minority and white British people. NHS organisations are required by the NHS Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Improvement Plan to develop and implement an improvement plan to eliminate pay gaps across ethnicity by the end of this year.
To help trusts meet in this requirement, we are pleased to share our new guide: Counting the cost: Understanding your ethnicity pay gap.
The guide has been co-produced with NHS Providers, the membership organisation for the NHS hospital, mental health, community and ambulance services that treat patients and service users in the NHS, and offers a unique perspective on the topic, combining NHS Providers’ extensive knowledge of the provider sector with our legal expertise.
The guide explores:
- The view from Dianne Greyson, founder of the #EthnicityPayGap campaign.
- Key learnings from Barts Health NHS Trust, Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust and Cambridge County Council who have begun to implement strategies and interventions to address their pay gaps.
- The legal framework and risk of inaction.
- How to understand your data, calculate your ethnicity pay gap and apply an intersectional lens.
- Strategies for minimising and closing the ethnicity pay gap.
- The role of the board in driving improvement.
What next?
We will be exploring this topic further at the NHS Providers Annual Conference and Exhibition. Join us for an insightful and engaging panel discussion which will explore the implications of ethnicity pay gaps, including their impact on staff morale, quality of patient care, and the potential legal risks if they aren’t addressed. Trust leaders can also hear from peers about the practical interventions that have helped to tackle this disparity.
By attending this discussion, delegates will be equipped with valuable knowledge and practical tools to develop effective, people centred, legally sound strategies aimed at reducing the ethnicity pay gap in their own organisations.
Contact us
Andrew Davidson and Saira Ramadan are partners in our employment law team. If you have any questions or have an employment law query we can help with, get in touch today.