Natural England gender pay gap report 2018
Published 19 December 2018
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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/natural-england-gender-pay-gap-report-2018/natural-england-gender-pay-gap-report-2018
Gender pay gap legislation (developed by the Government Equalities Office) introduced in April 2017 requires all employers of 250 or more employees to publish their gender pay gap for workers in scope as of 31 March 2018.
Natural England (NE)’s pay approach supports the fair treatment and reward of all staff irrespective of gender.
Gender make-up of Natural England
55% of NE’s workforce are women.
31% of NE’s Senior Leadership Team and Directors (SCS equivalent) are women.
The percentage of NE’s workforce who are women has remained at 55%, the same figure as 2017. Women hold 31% of the roles in NE’s Senior Leadership Team and Director group, an increase of 2% from 2017.
Gender pay gap
Natural England uses a staff framework ranging from Support Adviser to Chief Executive Officer (CEO), this follows a similar structure to Civil Service grading as follows:
| Natural England staff framework | Civil Service grade equivalent |
|---|---|
| Support Adviser | Administrative Officer |
| Adviser | Executive Officer |
| Lead Adviser, Specialist, Group Coordinator | Higher Executive Officer |
| Senior Adviser, Senior Specialist, Team Leader | Senior Executive Officer |
| Principal Adviser, Principal Specialist, Manager | Grade 7 / Grade 6 |
| Director | SCS Pay Band 1 |
| Chief Officer | SCS Pay Band 2 |
| Chief Executive Officer | SCS Pay Band 3 |
Levels of role vary according to the level of responsibility that people have. Each role level has a pay group and each pay group has a set pay range with specific pay points:
- minimum - the recruitment threshold or starting salary
- midpoint - between the pay group minimum and the target rate
- target rate - the rate of pay for someone who, over a period of time, is demonstrating all the required capabilities for their role, ways of working and contribution expected of them at this level of the organisation
- higher performance ceiling - the maximum rate of pay
People are expected to move through the pay range for their pay group. The longer the period of time that someone has been in a pay group the more we would expect them to earn irrespective of their gender.
| Mean pay gap | Median pay gap |
|---|---|
| 9.4% | 12.4% |
The mean gender pay gap has reduced by 1.5% from 2017, where it was 10.9%. The median pay gap has also reduced by 0.8% from the 2017 figure of 13.2%.
Bonus pay gap
Natural England’s performance awards below Director level were paid as a set value depending on the performance rating awarded under guidelines set out in the NE performance management system, irrespective of grade or gender. Performance awards were pro-rated for people who work part-time.
Performance bonuses paid above Director level were within Cabinet Office guidance in terms of number of bonuses paid and their value.
| Mean gender bonus gap | Median gender bonus gap |
|---|---|
| 21.9% | 0% |
The mean bonus pay gap has increased by 1.9% from 20% in 2017 while the median bonus pay gap remains at 0%.
| Proportion of men receiving a bonus | Proportion of women receiving a bonus |
|---|---|
| 44% | 37% |
The proportion of both men and women receiving bonuses has reduced since 2017 by 50% and 45% respectively. This is largely because the criteria for making performance awards during the period covered by this report was different to that during the period covered by the previous report. As a general trend, the gap between percentage of men and women has widened during this reporting period.
Pay by quartiles
| Hourly pay quartile | Women | Men |
|---|---|---|
| Lower quartile | 56% | 44% |
| Lower middle quartile | 64% | 36% |
| Upper middle quartile | 58% | 42% |
| Upper quartile | 43% | 57% |
The lower quartile of people comprises 56% females and the upper quartile comprises 43%. As 55% of Natural England’s people are women, this illustrates that the pay gap is largely as a result of a higher concentration of women in more junior roles and fewer females in more senior roles, though the female population in the upper quartile has increased by 4% compared to 2017.
Fewer women in more senior roles is still particularly demonstrated in the:
- Principal Specialist/Principal Adviser/Manager group (Grade 7 equivalent) - 59% male, 41% female
- Chief Officer group (SCS 2 equivalent) - 67% male, 33% female
- Board Members - 78% male, 22% female
In some of these groups, there has been an increase in the women population from 2017: 2% in the Principal Specialist/Principal Adviser/Manager (Grade 7 equivalent) group and 33% in the Chief Officer (SCS 2 equivalent) group.
The CEO (SCS3 equivalent) and Board Members group both show widened gender pay gap by virtue that the CEO and Chair are male.
| Grade | Number of men (% of men who work in this grade) | Number of women (% of women who work in this grade) | % female |
| Apprentice | 3 (0.3%) | 1 (0.1%) | 25% |
| Support Adviser (AO) | 117 (11.6%) | 140 (11.2%) | 54.5% |
| Adviser (EO) | 169 (16.8%) | 242 (19.4%) | 58.9% |
| Lead Adviser/Group Coordinator/Specialist (HEO) | 358 (35.5%) | 492 (39.5%) | 57.9% |
| Senior Adviser/Team Leader/Senior Specialist (SEO) | 239 (23.7%) | 292 (23.5%) | 55.0% |
| Principal Adviser/Manage/Principal Specialist (G7) | 104 (10.3%) | 71 (5.7%) | 40.6% |
| Director (SCS1) | 8 (0.8%) | 4 (0.3%) | 33.3% |
| Chief Officer (SCS2) | 2 (0.2%) | 1 (0.1%) | 33.3% |
| CEO (SCS3) | 1 (0.1%) | 0 | 0% |
| Board Member | 7 (0.7%) | 2 (0.2%) | 22.2% |
| Total | 1008 | 1245 | 55.3% |
Working to reduce the gender pay gap
Natural England is committed to improving our gender pay gap and delivering a number of initiatives through our equality, diversity and inclusion strategy to support women in the workplace.
We offer active support for women returning to work following maternity or adoption leave. We offer shared parental leave, job share, part-time opportunities and flexible working. We equally offer these opportunities to men to enable all employees to fulfil their caring responsibilities irrespective of gender.
During the summer of 2017, we surveyed women about working in Natural England and developed an action plan to shape our thinking about what we should tackle, when and how. Through this we are currently focusing on part time working and job-sharing – particularly in relation to promotion and career progression. Through a range of activities, the percentage of women in more senior roles continues to rise, as does the overall number of women in Natural England.
Natural England now requires that all our people managers undertake training to help support the process of performance ratings, which are made mid-year and at year end, and ensure that there is no unconscious bias when determining ratings. These ratings are subject to monitoring on a number of characteristics, including gender.
We support women progressing their careers through Civil Service programmes such as Positive Action Pathway (a talent programme for under-represented groups) and Crossing Thresholds (a year-long career development programme for Women in the Civil Service. Both of these now opened up to Non-Departmental Public Bodies. We also help people progress their careers by joining talent programmes and ensure that the gender mix of successful candidates will contribute to reducing the gender pay gap. These include:
- Future Team Leaders
- Conservation Strategy Advisers
- Civil Service accelerated promotion schemes such as Future Leaders and Senior Leaders
We provide a range of employee led networks supported and championed by Natural England’s senior leadership and equality, diversity and inclusion teams. Natural England’s gender champion aims to help women reach their full potential by providing advice and support, contributing to policy development and establishing good practices.
We monitor pay to identify any pay differences and take targeted action, where appropriate and where budget constraints allow.
We have improved the recruitment process through anonymised application processes, ensuring that all interviewers have undergone unconscious bias training and using diverse interview panels for selection. Recruitment data is monitored through the attraction, recruitment and selection process to identify areas for further improvement in recruiting a diverse workforce.
Marian Spain
Interim Chief Executive
Natural England