Corporate report

DFID Gender Pay Gap Report 2020

Published 15 December 2020

Introduction

On 2 September 2020, the Department for International Development and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office merged to become the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development office. This report and the data contained within it, relates only to DFID. It is for the year ended 31 March 2020 and therefore pre-dates this merger. The Department for International Development (DFID) leads the UK’s work to end extreme poverty, building a safer, healthier, more prosperous world for all of us which is firmly in the UK’s national interest. We are ending the need for aid by creating jobs, unlocking the potential of girls and women, and helping to save lives when humanitarian emergencies hit.

DFID has over 3000 staff with head offices in London and East Kilbride (near Glasgow) and substantial teams in more than 30 countries across Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Our pay approach is designed to support fair treatment and reward all our staff regardless of gender. We have been committed to be an inclusive employer by offering opportunities that will help staff realise their full potential and recognise their contribution to DFID’s, and the wider UK Government’s, ambitions. Building a diverse and inclusive workforce that reflects the people we serve is one of the Civil Service’s top workforce priorities. The Civil Service should create opportunities for all in a truly meritocratic way and reward all civil servants fairly, regardless of gender, ethnicity or any other personal characteristic.

In 2017, the Government introduced world-leading legislation that made it statutory for organisations with 250 or more employees to report annually on their gender pay gap. Government departments are covered by the Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties and Public Authorities) Regulations 2017 which came into force on 31 March 2017. These regulations underpin the Public Sector Equality Duty and require the relevant organisations to publish their gender pay gap data by 30 March annually. This includes the mean and median gender pay gaps; the mean and median gender bonus gaps; the proportion of men and women who received bonuses; and the proportions of male and female employees in each pay quartile.

The gender pay gap shows the difference in the average pay between all men and women in a workforce. If a workforce has a particularly high gender pay gap, this can indicate there may be several issues to deal with, and the individual calculations may help to identify what those issues are.

The gender pay gap is different to equal pay. Equal pay deals with the pay differences between men and women who carry out the same jobs, similar jobs or work of equal value. It is unlawful to pay people unequally because they are a man or a woman.

Under Gender Pay Gap reporting, we are required to report on the difference between men and women who work in DFID in relation to:

• mean hourly rate of pay
• median hourly rate of pay
• mean bonus paid
• median bonus paid

The proportions of:

• men and women who were paid a bonus
• men and women in the 1st (lower) quartile, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th (upper) quartile pay bands

Definitions

The Regulations require information to be reported under the following definitions.

The mean average is calculated by adding together all the values and dividing by the number of values. In this case a mean average is calculated for men, a mean average is calculated for women, and the 2 mean averages are compared.

The median average is calculated by sorting the values into an order from lowest to highest, and then finding the value that is in the middle of that sorted list. In this case a median average is calculated for men, a median average is calculated for women, and the 2 median averages are compared.

The pay quartiles are based on hourly pay for all staff. They are sorted into order from lowest amount to highest amount. This ordered list is then split into 4 equal parts, known as quartiles. The lowest pay quartile contains the first quarter of the ordered list, i.e. the 25% of the list with the lowest hourly rates of pay. The upper quartile contains the 25% of staff whose hourly rates of pay are the highest. Quartiles are related to the median average, as the median average marks the point between the second and third quartile.

Please note that throughout the report, due to rounding the total may not equate to an exact sum of the figures.

Statement

DFID confirms that our data has been calculated according to the requirements of the Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties and Public Authorities) Regulations 2017.

Locally engaged staff who are contracted outside of the UK are not covered by the definition of employee for the purpose of Gender Pay Gap reporting and are not included in the calculations.

Pay data used for this report is based on employee pay on the snapshot date of 31 March 2020 (including bonuses paid at 31 March 2020) and bonus pay for the period 1 April 2019 to 31 March 2020.

Gender pay gap and bonus pay

DFID’s mean and median pay gap fell between 2019 and 2020. Median from 8.4% to 5.6%, down 2.8 percentage points. Mean from 7.2% in 2018/19 to 5.9% in 2019/20, down 1.3 percentage points. Although we have seen a decrease over previous years within SCS grade from 8.6% to 0%, we have seen an increase last year from 0% to 2.2%. This type of fluctuation has been seen in other grades between years.

Explaining our gender pay gap

As in previous years, DFID continues to have a high proportion of its roles in more senior managerial grades (highest grades - SCS – A1). Women are represented at these grades at a lower proportion than the overall proportion of women in DFID.

Roles at higher grades are also more likely to be based in London or overseas, whereas lower grades, where women are over-represented, are more likely to be based outside of London and therefore paid at the lower, national rate.

These factors continue to be key drivers of DFID’s overall mean and median gender pay gaps.

Profile of the workforce

This report contains information for 2,708 employees as at 31 March 2020 as required by the Gender Pay gap regulations. Of these, 2,581 were classed as ‘full pay relevant’ employees and are included in the mean and median Gender Pay Gap calculations. All employees are included in the bonus Gender Pay Gap calculations. This report does not include data for locally employed staff overseas, contractors or consultants.

In 2020 women made up 56% of DFID’s workforce. Women make up 54% of the wider Civil Service so DFID is broadly similar^{[footnote 1]}. There has been very little movement in the gender composition in previous years. There continues to be an almost equal split of men and women in DFID’s Senior Civil Servants, with 53 and 47 respectively.

Gender Breakdown by Grade

^{[footnote 2]}.

Grade	Number of men	% of total men	Men at grade	Number of women	% of total women	Women at grade	Mean pay gap	Median pay gap
SCS	53	4.7%	53%	47	3.2%	47%	2.2%	0.0%
A1 (Grade 6)	244	21.7%	50%	247	17.0%	50%	1.8%	1.8%
A2 (Grade 7)	387	34.4%	44%	492	33.8%	56%	0.4%	0.0%
A2L (SEO)	125	11.1%	43%	169	11.6%	57%	1.6%	0.0%
B1 (HEO)	182	16.2%	41%	261	17.9%	59%	-1.2%	-6.5%
B2 (EO)	79	7.0%	36%	140	9.6%	64%	1.4%	10.6%
C1 (AO)	31	2.8%	44%	48	3.3%	56%	-1.8%	0.0%

Mean Grade Comparison 2017 to 2020

The mean gender pay gap in SCS grade has decreased significantly from 8.6% in 2016/17 and is now sitting at 2.2%, although there has been an increase from 0% in 2018/19. Within other pay grades it has fluctuated across years, however only grade A2L remains higher than 2016/17 level.

The mean gender pay gap within grades has fluctuated since 2017. In grades A1, A2 and B1, the mean pay gap decreased from 2017 to 2018, and subsequently increased in 2018/19. In other grades, we saw an increase in the mean GPG between 2017 and 2018, followed by a decrease in both 2019 and 2020. B1 and C1 grades now have a negative mean pay gap, meaning that women have higher mean earnings than men.

Basic Pay

Basic pay in terms of the Gender Pay Gap Legislation for DFID is the basic salary and any specialist allowances (such as IT) that was paid in the relevant period of the snapshot data. The difference in hourly pay at 31 March 2020 between men and women is shown below.

The mean hourly pay for men in DFID is 5.9% higher than the mean hourly pay for women. The median hourly pay for men is also higher, with men’s median hourly pay being 5.6% higher than the median hourly pay for women.

The mean pay gap has decreased by 1.3 percentage points between 2019 and 2020 and the median pay gap has decreased by 2.8 percentage points from 2018/19.

Basic Pay - Gender Pay Gap

Pay Quartiles

Sixty one percent of employees in the lowest pay quartile are women, compared with 51% of employees in the top pay quartile. As shown in the grade breakdown table on page 7 there are proportionately fewer women in the highest grades (SCS-A1) compared to women in DFID overall, which is reflected in the gender split across pay quartiles. The table also shows a disproportionately higher number of women in the lower grades within the organisation.

The distribution of women in the lowest pay quartile, however, has seen a decrease of 2% since last year and the percentage in the top pay quartile has increased by 2% during the same period. This is an encouraging shift at a time when the overall percentage of women in DFID since 2019 has increased by 0.1%

Gender Pay Gap: Quartiles

Bonus Pay

The difference in bonus pay between men and women for the period from 1 April 2019 to 31 March 2020 is shown below. This includes any recognition awards and in-year awards which were paid during this time period^{[footnote 3]}.

Bonus Pay - Gender Pay Gap

In 2020, DFID had a mean bonus pay gap of 4%. There has been no gap between median bonus pay for men and women in the organisation for all 4 reporting years.

Percentage of bonuses paid

Over the 12 month period, 68.3% of women received a bonus, while 69.9% of men received one. This is a decrease of 1.1 percentage points and an increase of 2.5 percentage points for women and men respectively, based on the calculations in the table below.

Bonus Payments Proportions

Closing the gender pay gap

Over the last 4 years, between 2017 and 2020, our analysis has continued to show that DFID’s gender pay gap was a result of the gender balance across our grades, whereby women are represented at senior grades at a lower proportion than the overall proportion of women in DFID. By contrast, women are overrepresented at lower grades compared to men.

Closing the gender pay gap will continue to be an integral part of our approach to Diversity and Inclusion. Our gender pay gap is largely a result of having proportionately more men than women at senior grades, and proportionately more women than men at lower grades, the most effective way of closing the gender pay gap is to work to close the gap between the grade distributions of men and women. This is also reflective of the FCO, details of which can be found in their report.

The key elements of how we have addressed this are:

Engagement

DFID has recognised that engaging with a wide range of staff and external organisations is fundamental to addressing the gender pay gap. The introduction in 2018 of the Gender Pay Gap working group has allowed us to broaden the discussion and share lived experiences relating to factors that may influence the gender pay gap (e.g. promotions, returns to work, career breaks).

Recruitment

We aim to recruit a talented and diverse workforce which reflects the society we serve. Our recruitment approach recognises the need to minimise the barriers to women progressing and developing in their careers.

As a result of this, when advertising roles we ensure anonymous recruitment is in operation for grades A1 and below.

We also have a policy of no single-sex interview panels at all grades, as well as promoting diverse panels at all grades as standard. Interviews for all roles are conducted in a structured manner, with all candidates asked the same predetermined questions and graded using standardised criteria, which helps reduce the risk of unfair bias influencing decisions.

Vacancies must be advertised as equally available to full time, flexible, and job share working patterns and must not be restricted unless there is a strong business rationale for why this cannot be accommodated. Vacancy holders must consider any requests for alternative working patterns in order to attract and retain candidates that require flexible working.

From January 2019, DFID has implemented Success Profiles as our standard framework for recruitment. In introducing this framework, the intention has been to make our recruitment process more accessible, helping us improve attraction and diversity and inclusion. Candidates are assessed against a variety of elements of the framework, using a range of different selection methods.

Progression

DFID continues to work to remove barriers to career progression for all talented staff under-represented in our senior grades by encouraging participation in Civil Service Talent Programmes including the Positive Action Pathway and Future Leaders Scheme for staff at grade A1 and below,

Mentoring and coaching are available to all staff through the matching service provided by Civil Service Learning, allowing staff to personalise their development to their own level and speed of progression as required. We are also increasing our support on key leadership transitions, to help people both plan and manage taking up and enacting more senior roles.

As part of our People Plan, we are also reviewing how we use talent schemes, with the intention of focusing them more explicitly on identified medium to long-term workforce and succession risks, and on improving the diversity of our talent pipelines.

Overall, our analysis shows that women secure at least a proportional share of promotions.

Career Paths

In addition to development programmes for existing employees, DFID also offers apprenticeships and internships to provide access to opportunities, stretch and networks for individuals to reach their potential.

DFID staff within the UK have access to flexible working arrangements, supporting work-life balance. Our People Plan commits us to rolling out the principles of flexible working to our overseas offices over the next year. This allows our staff opportunities to better balance their careers and wider responsibilities and interests. As an example of our ambition to maximise inclusion in our workforce, we have worked with networks to highlight the opportunity of Shared Parental Leave; the uptake within DFID almost doubled from 9 to 17 in 2018 and remained steady at the same figure for 2019. We have now seen an increase in the update to 35 during 2020. Our Shared Parental Pay mirrors our Maternity Pay arrangements.

People management capability

A core part of our new People Plan is to improve line management performance, and support to managers in building team effectiveness and resilience. Inclusive management principles, behaviours and capabilities will be central to this effort. The goal is to ensure managers reflect on their own bias, and invest in understanding and optimising the different strengths, perspectives and potential of all their staff. Our new approach to performance management, Being my Best, also focuses on inclusive and strengths-based people management, and continuous performance improvement and learning.

Pay Policy

Our approach is aimed at continuing to find ways in which to address the pay disparities through ongoing development of people policies and our wider pay strategy.

GPG is a key focus in DFID’s employment offer as part of our broader People Plan over the next few years.

DFID’s Networks and Trade Unions

DFID has a range of 14 staff networks which continue to play a vital role in delivering workplace inclusion for all our employees. The value of the networks is recognised in DFID and we encourage those who play key roles in networks to include this as part of their performance objectives.

An example is the women’s network, whose overall objective is to support and inspire women at all levels in DFID to achieve their potential. Its work focuses on a number of activities, such as:

• Inspiring women - through events, external speakers, workshops and seminars
• Building confidence - through networking, mentoring and learning from others
• Empowering women - overcoming barriers to success and engaging on key issues that affect them

DFID is working with its Trade Unions, PCS and FDA, to develop a coherent approach to our short and longer term Pay and Reward strategy.

Going Forward

This is the last year that DFID will report on gender pay gap, due to the merger with FCO. We recognise that there will still be more to do as FCDO.

FCDO vision is to be the most inclusive organisation in Government, which:

• leverages difference to increase innovation and enhance productivity
• encourages talented people from all backgrounds, perspectives and ways of thinking to join us and thrive, fostering inclusion at all levels
• treats each other fairly, respectfully and with kindness and allows everyone to speak up when this doesn’t happen

Our Senior leaders will continue to be committed to closing the gender pay gap.

As part of the newly created department, the GPG will also be at the forefront of the decisions we take in developing our future approach to pay and reward, recruitment, learning and development and career opportunities for all. Our aim will be to make decisions that are positive towards continuing to close our gender pay gap. This will be part of our broader People Strategy which will be developed over 2021.

Additional Information

Clarification of Grades

DFID uses the Civil Service grade structure using the following names:

• A1 – Grade 6
• A2 – Grade 7
• A2L – Senior Executive Officer
• B1 – Higher Executive Officer
• B2 – Executive Officer
• C1 – Admin Officer

Regulations

For further information on the Gender Pay Gap including definitions of in-scope employees, please consult the statutory regulations: The Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties and Public Authorities) Regulations 2017.

The Department for International Development:

leading the UK government’s fight against world poverty.

Department for International Development

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Published by the Department for International Development.

1. Civil Service Statistics 2020 – Cabinet Office National Statistics Publication, PDF 868KB. The Cabinet Office report has different definitions for which employees are in scope. ↩

2. This table does not contain any information about any talent programmes run by DFID due to small numbers of individuals. Only individuals who are in scope for gender pay gap reporting are included in this table. Figures may not match other reports where different employee groups have been used. Ministers are also excluded as they do not fit into the grade categories listed above. ↩

3. This includes awards recognising excellent performance and behaviour in delivering short, medium- and long-term goals to the organisation whilst demonstrating DFID and Civil Service values. These take the form of either monetary payments or recognition vouchers. Like other government departments we publish non-consolidated performance related pay data annually. ↩