Transparency data

DfT: gender pay gap report and data 2019

Published 23 January 2020

Introduction

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 relevant organisations to publish their gender pay gap 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 a number of 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.

The Department for Transport supports the fair treatment and reward of all our people irrespective of gender; and is committed to being a leader on inclusion in the civil service. Our new departmental values: confidence, excellence and teamwork, guide our behaviour and goals and express both what we are proud of in the Department for Transport, and what we aspire to do better.

Building a diverse and inclusive workforce that reflects the people we serve is one of the civil service’s top workforce priorities. Our collective aim is to make the civil service the UK’s most inclusive employer by 2020. Our diversity and inclusion strategy outlines how we plan to achieve this. 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.

This report analyses our gender pay gap figures in more detail, makes comparisons with our 2018 data where relevant, and sets out what we are doing to close the gender pay gap in our department.

Reflections from our Permanent Secretary

Transport is essential to everybody’s lives: it gets people and goods moving around the country and connects us internationally. DfT is at the heart of the transport system and we aim to reflect the people we serve, as well as helping the wider civil service become the UK’s most inclusive employer. That is why we are committed to inclusion, diversity and gender balance across the central department and its 4 executive agencies: the Driver Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA), the Driving Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA), the Maritime Coastguard Agency (MCA) and the Vehicle Certification Agency (VCA). We need to attract talented people from the widest pool possible into our workforce; and then ensure they feel valued and can realise their full potential.

In DfT, our mean gender pay gap for 2019 across the department and its agencies is 13.8%. Although I am pleased that this is smaller than last year, it is still too high and we must continue to focus on interventions which will reduce this gap.

I do not underestimate the challenge. This is our third year of gender pay reporting and as I have reported before, the DfT’s gap is driven in part by our history, how we are structured, and the specialised nature of some of our work. Our largest agency, the DVLA, employs thousands of people in Swansea, the majority of them women in more junior grades. We also have a significant number of roles across the DfT family, in functions such as engineering, digital and commercial, which attract additional pay allowances due to market shortages. Across the economy as a whole, and within DfT, women are less well represented in these functions.

We are seeing progress in some key areas. We have introduced a new system of performance bonuses in the DfT, and early results show the bonus pay gap is getting smaller. But reducing our gender pay gap will take time.

As each member of the DfT family has different challenges, we have developed localised plans which focus on relevant actions, brought together under 3 overarching themes:

• recruitment and attraction
  • the DfT has reviewed its recruitment approach and is implementing proposals to extend the use of job-carving, job-sharing and part-time job design
  • the DVLA’s ‘Code challenge’ is aimed at raising awareness of IT careers in the agency among local children in more deprived areas and aims to encourage more girls to pursue IT subjects
  • the MCA now routinely advertises all jobs on the Workingmums website and the DVSA has engaged the Netmums website to promote driving examiner and vehicle standards assessor roles
  • the VCA is launching an engineering apprenticeship with a strong focus on attracting women
• supporting women to develop and progress
  • the MCA has introduced a female-only cohort in its ‘Growing potential’ development programme and is encouraging more women to pursue a career in the maritime industry;
  • the DfT’s Gender Equality Network has a dedicated progression workstream offering support and advice to women seeking to progress their careers
  • the DfT and DVSA are rolling out progammes for line managers aimed at ensuring they can support women more effectively
• minimising the ‘family penalty’ and creating a culture where women can thrive
  • menopause guidance and support is being rolled out in the DfT and DVLA
  • the uptake of Shared Parental Leave is being encouraged across the DfT family

I believe that by focussing on these themes we can, over time, tackle our gender pay gap. More broadly, the DfT continues to champion greater gender diversity in the wider transport sector. I am proud of the work the department led on the 2018 Year of Engineering, which included an aim to encourage more girls into engineering careers, and we continue to be closely involved in this year’s legacy campaign Engineering: Take A Closer Look.

Thanks to the work of the Strategic Transport Apprenticeships Taskforce, we are seeing promising progress in improving the representation of women in engineering and technical apprenticeships in road and rail bodies, particularly at higher levels. Earlier this year I hosted a round table with senior transport representatives to examine the barriers and understand the most effective ways to better support women in the transport industry, and further work is planned to take the ideas discussed forward.

Ultimately though, improvement must start at home and I am determined to ensure DfT attracts women, supports them to achieve their potential when they are here and acts as a beacon for the transport sector. Through focusing our efforts on evidence-based actions, and working together across government and the transport sector, I believe we can over time reduce our gender pay gap and really ensure DfT is a great place to work, for everyone.

Bernadette Kelly, Permanent Secretary

Who we are - the DfT family

DfT comprises a core ministerial department and 4 executive agencies. We have a diverse workforce, working across Britain in a wide range of roles, from policy developers to critical front-line services such as the air, marine and rail accident investigation branches, driving examiners, coastguards, engineers and marine surveyors. Across the department we have over 25 professions, which range across all grades including the senior civil service (SCS).

The DfT family consists of:

Gender pay gap analysis

Fig 1. Summary gender pay gap and gender bonus gap 2017 to 2019

	2017	2018	2019
Gender pay gap (median)	22.6%	15.6%	13.8%
Gender pay gap (mean)	16.9%	15.6%	13.8%
Gender bonus gap (median)	22.2%	18.3%	15.0%
Gender bonus gap (mean)	25.2%	24.2%	17.0%

Gender pay gap

The gender pay gap shows the difference in average (mean and median) hourly pay between all men and women in a workforce. An hourly rate comparison is used to look at the pay gap because this takes into account part time workers.

Our departmental median gender pay gap has decreased by 1.8% since 2018 from 15.6% to 13.8%.

Our departmental mean gender pay gap has decreased by 1.8% since 2018, from 15.6% to 13.8%.

Fig 2. What are our gender pay gaps (hourly rate)?

Why do we still have a gender pay gap?

There are several factors contributing to our gender pay gap:

Different levels of gender representation across all grades and across different locations.

Overall, the DfT family has an employee population made up of 45% women and 55% men. However, we have different levels of gender representation across all our grades, with higher levels of women at the lower grades. DVLA, who are the largest employer in DfT with over 5,900 employees, have disproportionately greater numbers of women at lower grades. This brings the average hourly rate for women down. These staff are paid based on our national pay bands, which are lower than London pay bands to reflect the difference in living costs. The relatively high representation of women in our senior civil service (44%) and on our board (5 out of 7 of our executive are women) does not mitigate the gender imbalance across all grades in the DfT family.

Fig 3. Number of employees by grade, by gender - DfT and the agencies

High number of male-dominated specialist and technical roles.

Hourly rates used to calculate gender pay include retention and technical allowances that are paid to employees with specialist, technical skills and expertise. The workforces in DVSA, MCA and VCA are heavily skewed towards men in roles such as driving examiners, vehicle examiners and maritime surveyors. Most of these roles require technical qualifications, or prior experience as a mechanic, engineer, pilot or ship’s captain, which drives recruitment towards a narrow, mostly male pool - for example, 95% of engineers in VCA, 76% of driving examiners, 98% of vehicle examiners in DVSA and 93% of marine surveyors in MCA^{[footnote 1]}. Many of these roles also attract additional allowances due to market shortages, unsociable working hours or travel. These roles reflect a wider pattern across the transport sector. Where we offer job roles where the pool is less male-dominated - within our London Whitehall department - our gender pay gap is significantly lower.

Fig 4. What are the proportions of male and female employees in each quartile?

The biggest change in the gender split in pay quartiles is in the second and third quartiles: there has been a decrease in the proportion of females in the second quartile (49% in 2018 to 40% in 2019), and at the same time an increase in the proportion of females in the third quartile (29% in 2018 to 36% in 2019).

Gender Bonus Gap

The mean bonus pay gap has decreased by 7.2%, from 24.2% to 17.0%.

The median bonus pay gap has decreased by 3.3% from 18.3% to 15.0%.

Fig 5. What are our gender bonus gaps?

Fig 6. What proportions of male and female employees received a bonus?

A higher proportion of female employees received a bonus last year.

The system for awarding bonuses has changed between 2018 and 2019, moving from end of year performance bonuses to local recognition awards. The value of the award tended to be linked to grade, and to working hours. There are more women at the lower grades, and less women at the highest grades, and more women working part-time. This led to average value of the award received by women across the DfT family being lower than that received by men.

Diversity and Inclusion at DfT

At DfT, we recognise the importance of having a truly diverse workforce and an inclusive culture, to ensure we can attract the most talented individuals and help them achieve their full potential, and thereby meet the challenges of delivering a transport system for the future.

We published our diversity and inclusion strategy, Different People. One Team in 2017, in parallel with the diversity and inclusion strategy for the civil service. Our strategy is based on 5 goals with associated outcomes, which we want to achieve by 2021 we want:

• to be one of the most inclusive departments in the Civil Service.
• to attract, recognise and nurture diverse talent.
• to better reflect local working populations in all grades, roles and professions.
• our staff networks to be amongst the best in the Civil Service and transport sector.
• make everyone in our organisation understand the importance of diversity and inclusion and how we all play a part in making it happen

Each of these broader themes feeds into our work to close our gender pay gap, as well as creating an inclusive environment for our people.

Our D&I strategy also specifies 3 gender related outcomes which we have committed to:

• making progress towards gender parity in all grades and locations
• strengthening our female talent pipeline (grades 6 and 7) and senior leadership cadre
• increasing the number of women in roles and professions where they are underrepresented

These also inform our approach to closing the gender pay gap in section 4.

Closing our gender pay gap

Each part of our organisation has a localised gender pay gap action plan which aims to address the specific drivers of the gap, according to each unique operating environment, and within the context of our diversity and inclusion strategy, Different People. One Team. These plans are reviewed and challenged by our Group People Committee.

Our departmental gender champions, Ruth Hannant and Polly Payne, are the first Director General job-share partnership in government. They support our dynamic and influential gender network and are role models for our commitment to flexible working at all levels.

Research by the Government Equalities Office (GEO) focused on evidence based actions, tested in the real world, to help employers improve gender equality practices in the workplace.

We have used this emerging research, in consultation with our gender network and our senior leaders, to develop these localised plans. We will further analyse these actions in the light of the analysis in this report, to ensure that we are implementing interventions that will have the maximum impact, revising plans if necessary. The plans focus on 3 themes:

Recruitment and attraction

Actions ongoing in this area:	Actions we will focus on next year:
We have started to implement recommendations from the Clear Company review of DfT’s recruitment approach to improve women’s experience throughout the recruitment and selection process. This included full inclusive recruitment training for our specialist recruitment function.	Continue to implement other recommendations from the Clear Company review of DfT’s recruitment approach including working with a cross-functional team made up of our specialist recruitment function, senior business partners and representatives from across the organisation to consider how we use job-carving, job-sharing and part-time job design roles to attract and develop talented individuals.
DVLA’s ‘Code challenge’ sees them partner with over 50 local schools, within the 14% most deprived areas in Wales, to encourage children aged 7 to 14 into an IT career and to raise awareness of IT careers available within DVLA. This scheme continues to extend its reach and includes 6 school hosting days and 4 work experience placements per year.	VCA will launch an engineering apprenticeship, giving apprentices scope to qualify as Chartered Engineers. There will be a strong focus on encouraging women to apply.
MCA now routinely advertise all job roles on the Workingmums website, the UK’s top job and community site for working mums. Similarly, DVSA frontline recruitment engaged Netmums website to promote Driver Examiner and Vehicle standards assessor roles.	Across DfT, all Grade 7 and 6, and senior civil service (SCS) jobs, will be externally advertised by default to reach the widest possible pool of talent. There will be greater emphasis on attraction strategies for all Grade 7 and 6 roles with a recommendation to all Deputy Directors to take actions such as producing a video to promote and explain the role.
A ‘sourcer’ has been appointed to our new digital and technology recruitment team who is responsible for attaching more women into the profession, through proactive candidate attraction and ensuring all aspects of diversity and inclusion are embedded in the marketing and recruitment processes. To date, we have seen an increase in the number of female applicants, with 35% of all applicants being female between November 2018 and March 2019 (a significantly higher percentage than the external benchmark– Diversity in IT report 2017).	DVSA have established a full outreach strategy, focusing on universities with higher proportions of living-at-home students to ensure they reach out to students, including girls, from less advantaged backgrounds.
DVSA have successfully appointed 2 female Vehicle Standards Assessor apprentices and MCA have seen an increase in the number of applications and recruitment of females at non-entry grades since the removal of desirable criteria from job adverts and the external advertising of roles at Senior Executive Officer level and above.

Supporting women to develop and progress

Actions ongoing in this area:	Actions we will focus on next year:
Our ‘Ascend’ sponsorship programme, which pairs underrepresented groups with an SCS sponsor and aims to increase representation at senior level, is now underway. This year’s cohort has an intersectional lens, providing opportunities including for women who are disabled or from an ethnic minority background.	Continue to support and encourage participation in cross-government development programmes aimed at underrepresented groups, such as the Positive Action Pathway. Support will include workshops to offer tips on applications and sharing stories of previous participants.
MCA’s ‘Growing potential’ development programme now offers a female-only cohort to all female participants. The programme covers elements of change, project management and leadership approach. The female-only cohort provides opportunity to discuss, and implement strategies for dealing with, any current organisational barriers that females are facing. So far, 8 women have chosen to enrol on the female-only cohort.	Across DfT, we will actively promote our key talent programmes to underrepresented groups, including women, to build our diverse talent pipeline for the future. These will include the Senior Leaders Scheme (SLS) in DfTc, for SCS with the potential to reach the highest levels of the Civil Service, and the Future Leaders Scheme (FLS) for Grade 6 and 7s looking to progress to the SCS.
Our DfTc Gender Equality Network have a dedicated progression workstream, which focuses on offering support to women looking to progress their careers. Support includes application review, and regular events to facilitate networking and guidance on using the civil service success profiles.	DVLA will continue to raise awareness of the realities of traditionally male-dominated roles. Security officers have been running familiarisation visits of the security unit and sharing what their day to day roles involve. ‘Women in IT’ drop-in sessions have also given staff the opportunity to talk to women currently in IT roles and ask questions about how they got into IT, their roles and career aspirations. Feedback has been extremely positive since November 2018 and additional sessions have been planned.
DVSA’s Talent and Capability team have raised the profile of female recruitment and progression by holding 1:1 conversations with line managers. This is an ongoing process to support recruiters and line managers to consider how to support women to progress. A guidance kit will be produced to support this.	DfTc are rolling out Inclusive line management capability options, which includes wellbeing confident line manager training, continued rollout of wellbeing training for SCS and the design and delivery of disability confident line manager training. These will support our line managers to hold good quality wellbeing conversations, model behaviours and ensure management styles are fully inclusive of all staff, including women.
VCA are continuing to support and encourage applications from existing staff wishing to pursue a qualification in engineering, targeting females currently in an administrative discipline by running events to promote the progression options available. To date, 2 female administrative staff are currently training and one female engineer has completed her BTEC level 3.

Minimising the impact of the ‘family penalty’ and creating a culture where women can thrive

Actions ongoing in this area:	Actions we will focus on next year:
We have introduced a domestic abuse charter, developed by our Gender Equality Network in DfTc. This is designed to help staff understand what domestic abuse is, the impact it has on individuals and how our HR policies can help people to stay safe and support them to seek help and advice when the time is right.	We will use the information gained in the civil service inclusion survey to understand how inclusive our organisation is at a working level for all our staff, including women. This information will help us to make meaningful inclusion interventions where needed.
We continue to support our staff-led ‘Fair treatment ambassadors’ in the central department who help all our people, including women, feel welcome, able to be themselves and safe to challenge unacceptable behaviours.	We are implementing an everyday inclusion programme in the central department which will develop a strong group of allies (beginning the focus with our SCS colleagues) who provide active support to our staff networks, represent the perspective of underrepresented groups, including women, in the business and promote inclusive leadership.
DVLA have developed Menopause guidance designed to support women and line managers. This is available to all staff on the intranet and has been supported by several events to raise awareness.	Menopause guidance and a toolkit for employees and line managers was launched in October 2019. The central department’s Gender Equality Network and HR teams are working together to support colleagues going through the menopause.
VCA held a workshop for women returning to the workplace to understand the barriers they face and how they can be supported. Recommendations given about keeping in touch during career breaks, and line manager capability training, are currently being implemented.	We will undertake a targeted communications campaign to encourage uptake of shared parental leave in the central department, including identifying and publicising role models and improving our advice and guidance on internal platforms and via our HR advice line. We will also create a ‘one-stop’ page on our intranet site which brings together all information and support regarding family policies into one area.
DVLA published an intranet article to raise awareness of shared parental leave from the perspective of a male staff member. Engagement was high and feedback very positive.

Declaration

I confirm that data reported by the Department for Transport is accurate and has been calculated according to the requirements and methodology set out in the Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties and Public Authorities) Regulations 2017.

Bernadette Kelly, Permanent Secretary.

Footnotes

1. Figures for gender representation in different jobs roles taken from 2018 to 2019 Equality Monitoring data. ↩