Home Office's gender pay gap report 2020
Updated 26 January 2022
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Background
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 an organisation 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 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 Home Office promotes the fair treatment and reward of all staff irrespective of gender. We are revising our Diversity and Inclusion Strategy, Inclusive by Instinct to better reflect our current aspirations on Inclusion and taking on board the important findings from the Windrush Lessons Learned Report. We continue our journey to become a place where everyone feels valued, able to bring their whole selves to work and, importantly, reflect the communities we serve.
This report fulfils the department’s reporting requirements, analyses the figures in more detail and sets out our progress to date and what we are doing to close the gender pay gap in our organisation.
Our report for 2020 previously used locally calculated data for GPG. We have undertaken a review of the GPG data for 2021 and clarified that the Annual Civil Service Employer Survey(ASCES) GPG data for Home Office for 2020 contained a full dataset. The ASCES methodology for GPG should be used for comparisons between 2020 and future years. Subsequent published reports use this data. We have retained the previous data to allow for historical comparisons
2020 ASCES Gender Pay Gap Data
| Mean Hourly Pay gap | 7.85% |
| Median Hourly Pay Gap | 12.5% |
| Mean Bonus Pay Gap | 3.3% |
| Median Bonus Pay Gap | 0% |
| % of men receiving a bonus payment | 63.3% |
| % of women receiving a bonus payment | 62% |
| Quartile | Male | Female |
|---|---|---|
| Upper quartile | 55.7 | 44.3 |
| Third quartile | 55.2 | 44.8 |
| Second quartile | 41.1 | 58.9 |
| Lower quartile | 39.8 | 60.2 |
2019/20 Gender Pay Gap Analysis
Organisational context
At 31 March 2020, Home Office employed a total of 33,496 relevant employees of which 33,215 were full time equivalent staff below Senior Civil Servant (SCS), and 281 SCS staff.
The Home Office has the ability, within the frameworks set by HM Treasury and Cabinet Office, to determine its pay and grading structures for grades below the SCS (AO to Grade 6).
The SCS pay and grading structures are determined by the Cabinet Office. Home Office can make salary and bonus awards within centrally determined parameters.
The Home Office annually reviews pay for staff in grades below SCS, focusing on what steps might be taken to reduce identified disparities, as part of its pay policy.
Arm’s Length Bodies of the Home Office, and National Crime Agency (NCA), will report separately. The gender pay gap analysis provided here is based on the methodology set out in the Equality Act (Specific Duties and Public Authorities) Regulations 2017.
Across all grades and business areas, our workforce consists of 16,024 females and 15,694 males, 50.52% and 49.47% percent respectively
Gender pay gap figures for 2019/20 are listed below.
It should be noted that the figures in this report differ to those published in August 2020 as part of the Civil Service Statistics release, which employed a partial data set. The recalculated figures contained in this report are based on the complete data set, enabling us to demonstrate consistency with previous Home Office Gender Pay Gap declarations.
Key figures
Proportion of female and male employees
| Male | Female |
|---|---|
| 49 | 51 |
Gender distribution by grade
| Grade | Percentage of males who work in this grade | Percentage of females who work in this grade |
|---|---|---|
| AA | 3 | 3.2 |
| AO | 18.5 | 24.3 |
| EO | 42.9 | 40.7 |
| HEO | 15.5 | 14.1 |
| SEO | 9.9 | 9.2 |
| Grade 7 | 6.9 | 5.7 |
| Grade 6 | 2.5 | 2.1 |
| SCS | 0.9 | 0.7 |
Hourly pay gap
| Mean | Median |
|---|---|
| 8.2% | 14% |
The gender pay gap is calculated as the difference between average hourly earnings (excluding overtime) of men and women as a proportion of average hourly earnings (excluding overtime) of men’s earnings.
Percentage of males and females in each pay quartile
| Quartile | Male | Female |
|---|---|---|
| Upper quartile | 56 | 44 |
| Third quartile | 53.5 | 46.5 |
| Second quartile | 40.1 | 59.9 |
| Lower quartile | 40.3 | 59.7 |
Bonus pay gap
| Mean | Median |
|---|---|
| 4.5% | 10% |
The bonus pay gap refers to the bonus pay paid to male and female relevant employees during the 12 months prior to the snapshot date, expressed as a percentage of the bonus pay paid to male relevant employees.
Proportion of males and females receiving a bonus
| Male | Female |
|---|---|
| 50% | 50% |
Analysis
Hourly pay gap
| Mean | Median | |
| This year (2019-20) | 8.2% | 13.9% |
|---|---|---|
| Last year (2018-19) | 8.8% | 14.6% |
| 2 years ago (2017-18) | 9.6% | 14.5% |
The mean and median pay gaps have continued a downward trajectory and reduced to 8.2% and 13.9% respectively for 2019/20. This is a decrease of 0.6% percentage points for the mean, and 0.7% percentage points for the median from the previous year. These reductions are primarily attributable to the shortening of the pay ranges by 2% last year; the targeting of the SCS pay award, and an increased representation of females at senior grades (SCS).
Percentage of males and females in each pay quartile
This year 2019-20
| Quartile | Male | Female |
|---|---|---|
| Upper quartile | 56 | 44 |
| Third quartile | 53.5 | 46.5 |
| Second quartile | 40.1 | 59.9 |
| Lower quartile | 40.3 | 59.7 |
Last year 2018-19
| Quartile | Male | Female |
|---|---|---|
| Upper quartile | 56.9 | 43.1 |
| Third quartile | 53.1 | 46.9 |
| Second quartile | 39.1 | 60.9 |
| Lower quartile | 40.8 | 59.2 |
Two years ago 2017-18
| Quartile | Male | Female |
|---|---|---|
| Upper quartile | 57 | 43 |
| Third quartile | 53.4 | 46.6 |
| Second quartile | 40.6 | 59.4 |
| Lower quartile | 39 | 61 |
The quartiles are all within 1% percentage point of last year’s figures. There is some improvement in the upper quartile where the number of female employees has increased by 0.9% percentage points.
Bonus pay gap
| Mean | Median | |
| This year (2019-20) | 4.5% | 10% |
|---|---|---|
| Last year (2018-19) | 6.9% | 6.1% |
| 2 years ago (2017-18) | 12.2% | 7.7% |
The table above shows the mean bonus pay gap has reduced by 2.4% percentage points from last year. The median bonus pay gap however has increased and this is down to a larger proportion of male employees receiving higher value bonus payments.
Proportion of gender population receiving a bonus payment in 2019/20
| - | Male | Female |
|---|---|---|
| This year (2019-20) | 50% | 50% |
| Last year (2018-19) | 77% | 77% |
| Two years ago (2017-18) | 55% | 57% |
The proportion of bonus payments made is split evenly between men and women, with half the workforce having received some form of bonus, be it a monetary payment or a voucher. The driver behind the reduction in bonuses from 77% to 50% appears to be down to the ceasing of incentivisation practices in HMPO and UKVI which in 2018/19 accounted for 43% of bonuses.
Actions
The Home Office is committed to closing the gender pay gap, and we have a gender pay gap action plan dedicated to making our ambition a reality. Our Diversity and Inclusion Strategy – ‘Inclusive by Instinct’ sets out our aims for widening representation for underrepresented groups, including women and building an inclusive workplace to attract, engage, develop and retain talented, diverse staff. The Strategy, which had a progress checkpoint built in for 2020 is currently being refreshed in consultation with our stakeholders. We have set ourselves specific targets to address the under-representation of women in the Senior Civil Service (SCS) aiming to achieve by 2025, a representation rate of 47%, which is equivalent to the female economically active population of the UK. Female SCS representation in the Home Office has exceeded our target during 2020 but is currently at 46.5%. (Source: People Data and Analytics: June 2020).
Our strategy to achieve gender equality has included a variety of interventions and actions. These include participation in cross-government programmes and the development of Home Office specific activities:
Cross-government activity
Since 2016, we have run our own, award-winning development programme called Access to support the development of underrepresented groups in middle management roles, including women. We are currently developing a complementary programme for entry level and first line management roles.
We participate in Crossing Thresholds, a 12-month mentoring programme aimed exclusively for women in the Civil Service at all levels below the SCS.
The Positive Action Pathway is a cross-government development programme available to staff in underrepresented groups and all levels below the SCS who have the potential and aspiration to progress in the Civil Service.
The Future Leaders Scheme is a cross-government talent programme aimed at high potential senior managers, including from underrepresented groups to help them accelerate their development to the SCS and to create a strong, diverse talent pipeline across the Civil Service. Also, for SCS we have the Senior Leaders Scheme to accelerate the development of high potential SCS.
We also participated in a Leadership Summit, designed specifically for women to support them moving into executive roles; last year we participated in a pilot Summit for Black, Asian and minority ethnic women, and recently launched an equivalent pilot for women at middle management level.
Across all these accelerated development programmes, where they are not targeted exclusively at women, we aim to at least equal or exceed the proportion of women participating against staff population benchmarks or the economically active population (whichever is higher). The launch of some programmes was delayed earlier this year in response to the pandemic; we remain committed to continuing to invest in the accelerated development of our staff, with a specific focus on women, to support increased representation across the organisation. Evaluation activity is underway for new and existing interventions, to ensure the offer has the intended impact and outcome.
Home Office departmental activity
We have successfully launched a ‘Career Watch’ Sponsorship Programme, for Black, Asian and minority ethnic staff and staff with a disability, where a senior leader will focus their influence to support the development and progression of staff with potential to progress. This model can be extended to all underrepresented groups. Data collected from two thirds of the local Career Watch schemes launched so far indicates that an average 54% of sponsees are women.
We have developed a Senior Leaders Programme that targets women (and men) ‘Returners’ to help them reestablish their careers and allows the department a route to increase the diversity of the leadership population.
We continue to support our Return to Work Programme, which provides a bridge back to work for experienced professionals who have taken an extended career break for typically two years or more. We also promote Shared Parental Leave policies to all staff.
We provide flexible working to support staff who wish to work more flexibly, for example, posts being available on job-share and options for reduced hours, term-time working or compressed hours and the encouragement on the uptake of shared parental leave.
A ‘Part-time Working Conference’ was held earlier this year in our largest directorate, Border Force, to explore the issues faced by these staff and to discuss solutions to best support those working part time to reach the management and middle management grades.
We are continuously looking to improve workplace culture by embedding learning from the ‘Collaborating with Men’ study, carried out in conjunction with Murray College, University of Cambridge. This is a ground-breaking approach focussing on the positive engagement between men and women to challenge, enable and drive forward cultural changes to assist employers in providing an environment inclusive for all.
Next steps
The Home Office continues to monitor trends in earnings by gender and to act as permitted within the parameters set by the Treasury’s pay guidance, to further reduce any variances.
The Home Office will continue to work to ensure we have the right culture where women can thrive and have their voices heard on parity with men and by creating a more diverse gender promotion pipeline at all levels to support us in appropriately balancing our gender representation at senior grades, including the SCS.
Whilst currently being refreshed, our action plan for Inclusive by Instinct will continue to recognise that addressing the gender pay gap is a holistic enterprise, which will flourish when supported appropriately at all levels – the actions around gender are co-owned by our gender staff support network, GEN (Gender Equality Network):
We have an Executive Committee level Gender Champion who is supported by a gender board which meets regularly to identify and address gender representation and inclusion issues at the Home Office.
GEN is an established and active gender staff support network. Together with the department the network has developed a shared Gender Action Plan focusing on: balanced representation, the gender pay gap, talent, and wellbeing. GEN were recently in the top three shortlisted for the Advancing Gender Equality Award category in the 2020 Civil Service Diversity & Inclusion Awards.
Our primary focus over the next year will be to undertake further analysis to identify the key drivers of the gender pay gap within the Home Office. This will include modelling of different elements across directorates in the Department to forecast which interventions will be most effective.
We are currently developing a talent scheme for junior grades from underrepresented groups, including women, to launch in early 2021. This is being scoped in Focus Groups with staff from underrepresented groups.
A cross Home Office Exit Survey is due to launch in 2021 that provides qualitative and quantitative evidence to help us understand what more can be done to attract and retain talent with a specific focus on the impact on women. Further plans to develop entrance and exit interviews for those transferring between directorates will follow.
Our largest directorate, Border Force, are establishing a job-share network.
Following a recent Maternity Leave and Return to Work survey, we will be looking to embed learning during 2021.
We are continually implementing recruitment practices to create a diverse workforce, using non-discriminatory job descriptions and anonymised recruitment to eliminate potential bias in the recruitment process. We highlight vacancies on Vercida, the recruitment website for people looking for inclusive employers. From 19 October 2020 the language used in all vacancies will, prior to advertising, be checked by an inclusion software tool aimed at removing unconscious bias.
We continue to shorten salary bands. As staff are recruited and promoted, they will enter the next grade at or near the grade minimum, and therefore at a disadvantage to established staff in those grades who will be at a more advanced salary. Reducing the range width of grade salary bands counters the potential for this to impact either gender.