Transparency data

Natural England gender pay gap report 2020

Published 15 December 2020

Applies to England

Foreword

Natural England is responsible for providing practical advice, grounded in science, on how best to safeguard England’s natural wealth for the benefit of everyone. Our remit is to ensure sustainable stewardship of the land and sea so that people and nature can thrive. It is our responsibility to see that England’s rich natural environment can adapt and survive intact for future generations to enjoy.

We are committed to being an equitable, diverse and inclusive organisation where every individual has equality of opportunity to progress and is able to thrive. Our new Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy 2020 to 2024 reaffirms this commitment and builds on a strong foundation for both individual and organisational growth.

This report provides gender pay gap information for the year ending 31 March 2020, with comparable information for the previous three years (2017, 2018 and 2019). As an organisation we are accountable and open to challenge and scrutiny. Gender pay gap reporting reports how well we achieve gender equality in our pay structures.

We are pleased to report that both our mean (7%) and median (2.7%) gender pay gaps have reduced this year (reduction of 1.4% mean, 3.4% median), maintaining a continuous downward trend over the last four years. Our policies and initiatives promote equal opportunities for all our workforce and it is encouraging to see this reflected in our narrowing pay gaps. However, there remains more work to do to reduce our gender pay gap and it’s important that we continue to pay particular attention to how we are recruiting, developing and retaining staff and creating clear pathways for people to progress in their career.

We have recently become a member of a new gender focused Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Board that aims to collaboratively tackle the Defra group gender pay gap, share best ideas, actionable insights and develop new ways to reduce and close the gender pay gap.

We are fully committed to creating an inclusive workplace for our people, and we will continue to work towards further improvements on the gender pay gap.

Tim Hill - Natural England - EDI Champion and Chief Scientist
Amanda Craig - Gender Champion and Director of Connecting People to Nature

Introduction

Gender Pay Gap legislation 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 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 is the difference in the average pay between all men and women in the organisation. It is different to equal pay, which is about the difference in the actual earnings of men and women doing equal work (or work of equal value).

The mean gender pay gap is the difference between the mean hourly rate of male full-pay relevant employees and that of female full pay relevant employees^{[footnote 1]}.

The median gender pay gap is the difference between the median hourly rate of pay of male full-pay relevant employees and that of female full-pay relevant employees.

Natural England’s pay approach supports the fair treatment and reward of all staff irrespective of gender.

Gender pay gap summary

A summary of the gender pay gap including proportions of men and women receiving bonuses and pay quartiles in a 12 month period ending 31 March 2020.

Mean gender pay gap	Median gender pay gap	Mean gender bonus gap	Median gender bonus gap
7%	2.7%	0.9%	-160%

Proportion of women receiving a bonus payment	Proportion of men receiving a bonus payment
92%	91%

Quartile	Female %	Male %
Lower quartile	56	44
Lower middle quartile	62	38
Upper middle quartile	59	41
Upper quartile	44	56

Background for each calculation and context

Natural England have their own staff framework terminology, and have pay groups ranging from Support Adviser to Chief Executive as follows:

Natural England pay group	Civil Service grades used for Cabinet Office reporting
Support Adviser	AO
Adviser	EO
Lead Adviser, Group Coordinator, Specialist	HEO
Senior Adviser, Team Leader, Senior Specialist	SEO
Principal Adviser, Manager, Principal Specialist	Grade 7/6
Director	SCS1
Chief Officer	SCS2
Chief Executive	SCS3
Board Member	n/a

Grades vary according to the level of responsibility that staff have and each pay group has a set pay range. The longer period of time that someone has been in a grade the more we would expect them to earn irrespective of their gender.

The mean gender pay gap has reduced by 1.4% from 2019 when it stood at 8.4%. The median gender pay gap has also reduced, by 3.4% from the 6.1% 2019 figure. These reductions are attributable to increases in the percentages of women into the third quartile, which is a result of increases in percentages of women in Principal Adviser/ Manager/ Principal Specialist pay group.

Natural England – publication data	2017	2018	2019	2020	+/- from 2019
Mean gender pay gap - ordinary pay	10.9%	9.4%	8.4%	7.0%	-1.4%
Median gender pay gap - ordinary pay	13.2%	12.4%	6.1%	2.7%	-3.4%

While there has been an increase in the proportion of women into more senior roles over the last 3 years, we are aware that there is further work to do.

• 55% of NE’s workforce are women
• 40% of NE’s Director/ Chief Officer and Executive Group are women
• 48% of NE’s Principal Adviser / Manager / Principal Specialist are women

Mean and median bonus pay

For the purposes of Gender Pay Gap reporting, references made to bonuses is referring to performance payments made to Natural England’s people. Specifically, these are the non-consolidated payments made as part of the pay award, where a sum is paid to recipients of an end-of-year performance rating. Natural England’s performance awards paid to the Principal /Manager group and below are done so as a set value depending on performance level, irrespective of gender. Bonuses were pro-rated for staff who worked part-time, this lowers the average bonus pay for women who are on average more likely to work part time. Performance payments for Director & Senior Leadership Team were paid in line with Cabinet Office SCS guidelines where variable amounts may be awarded.

Proportion of women receiving a bonus payment	Proportion of men receiving a bonus payment
92%	91%

The mean bonus pay gap has increased slightly by 0.4% since 2019, this is due to bonuses paid at SCS level. The median gender pay gap, which has remained at 0% since Natural England began reporting in 2017, has increased to 160% in favour of women.

For the period covered by this report, these were the percentages of payments paid out in the 2019 pay award to those who received a rating 1, 2 and 3. This explains the increase in percentage of payments made to both men and women compared to previous years when payments were made for rating 1 & 2 only. The proportion of men receiving a bonus has increased by 47% since 2019, whereas the proportion of women receiving a bonus has increased by 48% from last year.

The percentage of women receiving a payment was slightly higher than that of men due to there being 55% woman in the organisation compared to 45% men. The median point for men falls just within the £100 value. Whereas, the median point for women falls just into the higher value of £260.

Natural England – publication data	2017	2018	2019	2020	+/- from 2019
Mean gender pay gap - bonus pay in 12 months ending 31 March	20%	21.9%	0.5%	0.9%	+4%
Median gender pay gap - bonus pay in 12 months ending 31 March	0%	0%	0%	-160%	-160%
Proportion of male employees paid a bonus in 12 months ending 31 March	87%	44%	40%	91%	+51%
Proportion of female employees paid a bonus in 12 months ending 31 March	89%	37%	44%	92%	+48%

Pay by quartiles: hourly pay quartiles

Hourly pay quartile	Women	Men
Lower quartile	56%	44%
Lower middle quartile	62%	38%
Upper middle quartile	59%	41%
Upper quartile	44%	56%

The quartiles have remained relatively constant in relation to previous years, the percentage of women reducing in the higher quartiles. This illustrates the pay gap is largely a result of a higher concentration of women in more junior grades, and fewer female staff in more senior grades. The percentage of women in the third quartile has increased in comparison to last year.

Proportion of male and female employees in each quartile

Quartile (figures shown in %)	Female 2017	Female 2018	Female 2019	Female 2020	Female difference	Male 2017	Male 2018	Male 2019	Male 2020	Male difference
First (lower) quartile	56	56	59	56	-3	44	44	41	44	+3
Second quartile	66	64	62	62	0	34	36	38	38	0
Third quartile	58	58	54	59	+5	42	42	46	41	-5
Fourth (upper) quartile	39	43	44	44	0	61	57	56	56	0

Distribution of female and male staff by grade

The next table shows the distribution of female and male staff by grade from junior to senior roles in Natural England. Women are generally over-represented in more junior grades (though there are now more men in the Support Adviser grade), where pay is lower, and under-represented in more senior grades.

Grade (increasing seniority)	Number of men (% of men who work in this grade)	Number of women (% of women who work in this grade)	% female
Support Adviser	59 (7.1%)	54 (5.3%)	48%
Adviser	105 (12.6%)	152 (14.8%)	59%
Lead Adviser/Group Coordinator/Specialist	319 (38.2%)	420 (41%)	57%
Senior Adviser/Team Leader/Senior Specialist	238 (28.5%)	299 (29.2%)	56%
Principal Adviser/Manager/Principal Specialist	96 (11.5%)	88 (8.6%)	48%
Director/Chief Officer/CEO	12 (1.4%)	8 (0.8%)	40%
Board Member	6 (0.7%)	3 (0.3%)	33%
Total	835 (100%)	1024 (100%)	55%

Taking action to close the gender pay gap

Natural England aspires to be one of the most inclusive employer in the UK. We are working to close our gender pay gap by delivering a number of initiatives through our Defra group Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy, and through our newly established cross Defra Group Gender Board with the aim of improving gender equality by creating a specific and measurable focus on closing the gender pay gap. The Gender Board includes a specific working group developing effective actions to close the gender pay gap.

The Gender Board is chaired by an Executive Committee Champion and feeds into an overall Inclusion Leadership Group of senior leaders which has oversight of ongoing work to improve equality, promote collaborative working and remove barriers to progress.

Establishing new internal structures (Gender Board, Inclusion Leadership Group) and working in collaboration with employee diversity networks, Pay and Reward Teams and the Equality Diversity and Inclusion Team is key to addressing and tackling the gender pay gap. Achieving better collaboration through shared working platforms is essential to capturing, developing and building on work already taken forward in Natural England including:

• 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.

• We help women to progress their careers through schemes such as the 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 are open to Non-Department 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 support a range of employee led networks supported and championed by Natural England’s senior management and Equality and 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 to ensure our processes are fair and transparent. In addition, we will conduct an analysis of our bonus gap with a focus on identifying an hourly gap, which takes into account part-time pro-rata bonuses, to give a different perspective on the gap between women and men’s bonuses.

• We continue to anonymise our 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. We will continue to review and refresh our approach to resourcing to ensure the recruitment of women and men at all levels is inclusive. This will include considering whether or not specific action should be taken to achieve better gender parity in more junior grades where women are currently over-represented.

Declaration

We confirm that data reported by Natural England 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.

Marian Spain, Natural England Chief Executive

1. ‘Full-pay relevant employee’ means a relevant employee who is not, during the relevant pay period, being paid at a reduced rate or nil as a result of the employee being on leave, The Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017. Throughout this report, references to employees or gender profile includes full-pay relevant employees only. The ‘relevant pay period’, in relation to the relevant employee, means (a) the period in respect of which the relevant employer pays the employee basic pay, whether weekly, fortnightly, or monthly or any other period, or (b) if the relevant employer does not pay the employee basic pay, the period in respect of which the employer most frequently pays the employee one of the elements of ordinary pay mentioned in regulation 3(1) (b) to (e), The Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017. ↩