Leicester City Council to hold Gender Pay Gap meeting today

By Emily Rooney

Leicester City Council are holding a meeting at the Town Hall today (MAR 19) to discuss the recent Annual Pay Statement and Gender Pay Gap reports.

Both reports have recently been released by Leicester Council, and as a Pay Policy Statement must be published by the start of the new financial year, the council will all be expected to attend the meeting this evening at 5pm.

The Equal Pay statement for the 2019 financial year has shown that Leicester is one of the leading local authorities for equal pay, with a median pay gap of zero per cent.

The average hourly rate for women working for Leicester City Council is £14.55, whilst for men it is £14.57.

These statistics do not detail the gap between men and women doing the same job, but rather reflects the overall average pay, and is not separated by job role.

This means that there are roughly an equal number of men and women at all levels of Leicester City Council.

In heavy contrast to this, 2018’s Equal Pay report for Leicestershire Police revealed that there was a 31.5 per cent average pay gap, meaning that women earned around 68p for every pound earned by a man.

Defending the figures to the BBC, Chief Constable Simon Cole said

“Everybody here gets paid the same according to role, there is no difference in that between the sexes. However, there’s a reality to how our workforce is made up.

“We have lots of people joining the organisation, and, compared to the past, more of them are female.

“Obviously, when you join you get paid less.”

The public sector, on average, has a median pay gap of 16.8 per cent, and an average pay gap of 15.7 per cent.

The meeting today will also propose changes to Contract Procedure Rules, as well as presenting the Independent Renumeration Panel Report.

Additional figures and statistics for councils nationwide and other public authorities will be published by or on March 31 2020.

For any questions or queries related to the council meeting, contact Matthew Reeves at 0116 4546352 or email Matthew.reeves@leicester.gov.uk