Natural England gender pay gap report 2021
Published 27 January 2022
Applies to England
© Crown copyright 2022
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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 2021, with comparable information for the previous 4 years (2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020). 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 (5%) and median (1%) gender pay gaps have reduced this year (reduction of 2% mean, 1.7% median percentage points (pp.)), maintaining a continuous downward trend over the last 5 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 work collaboratively across the Defra Group to tackle and close the gender pay gap through the Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Gender Board. We are fully committed to creating an inclusive workplace for our people, and we will continue to work towards making further improvements to reach gender parity.
Gleny Lovell, Chair of People Committee
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.
The bonus pay gap measures payments to reward performance that are a part of the annual pay award or throughout the year under the in-year performance payment scheme. The mean bonus value is found by adding all bonus values together and dividing the total by how many people were paid. The median is the middle value if all bonuses were stacked from lowest to highest. It’s important to note some bonus payments such as end of year performance awards are pro-rated for part time workers which can influence bonus pay gaps.
Gender pay gap summary
The mean and median pay figures, proportions of men and women receiving bonuses, proportions of men and women in each pay quartile and the overall make up of women in Natural England.
Natural England recognise that gender is not a binary concept and some people may not fixedly identify with a set gender. For the purposes of this report and in line with broader gender pay gap reporting, only male and female genders are included.
| Mean gender pay gap | Median gender pay gap | Mean gender bonus gap | Median gender bonus gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5% | 1% | 0.6% | 0% |
| Proportion of women receiving a bonus payment | Proportion of men receiving a bonus payment |
|---|---|
| 44% | 41% |
| Quartile | Female % | Male % |
|---|---|---|
| Lower quartile | 59 | 41 |
| Lower middle quartile | 59 | 41 |
| Upper middle quartile | 61 | 39 |
| Upper quartile | 47 | 53 |
| Natural England group | Female % |
|---|---|
| Total workforce | 56 |
| Principal Adviser, Manager and Principal Specialist | 50 |
| Director / Chief Officer and Executive | 42 |
Organisational context
Natural England have their own staff framework terminology, and have pay groups ranging from Support Adviser to Chief Executive as follows:
Table 1: Natural England and Civil Service grade comparisons
| Natural England pay group (increasing in seniority) | Equivalent 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 someone has been in a grade the more we would expect them to earn irrespective of their gender.
Distribution of male and female staff in NE
The next table shows the distribution of female and male staff by grade from junior to senior roles in Natural England. There are proportionally more women in more junior grades, where pay is lower. Proportionally, women are also under-represented at the highest levels of the organisation.
Table 2: Distributions of male and female staff by grade
| Pay group (Increasing in seniority) | Number of men | Men as % of workforce at this grade | Number of women | Women as % of workforce at this grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Support Adviser | 64 | 6.6% | 62 | 4.9% |
| Adviser | 119 | 12.3% | 177 | 14.2% |
| Lead Adviser / Group Co-ordinator / Specialist | 365 | 37.8% | 469 | 37.7% |
| Senior Adviser / Team Leader / Senior Specialist | 282 | 29.2% | 401 | 32.2% |
| Principal Adviser / Manager / Principal Specialist | 117 | 12.1% | 120 | 9.6% |
| Directors / Chief Officer / CEO | 11 | 1.1% | 8 | 0.6% |
| Board Member | 6 | 0.6% | 5 | 0.4% |
| Total Workforce: (2,206 people) (* includes rounding) |
964 | 100% | 1,242 | 100% |
Mean and median hourly pay gaps
The mean gender pay gap (5%) has reduced by 2% percentage points since 2020 when it stood at 7%. The median gender pay gap has also reduced, by 1.7% (pp) from the 2.7% 2020 figure. These reductions can be attributed to the approach taken in the 2020 pay review, where larger awards were made to those who were lower down in their pay range. Pay groups that had the widest gaps were targeted. Another important contributory factor is increases in the proportions of women into the third and fourth quartiles, this shows the percentages of women in more senior pay groups is improving. Whilst there have been increases in the proportions of women in senior roles over since 2017, we are aware that there is further work to do to achieve gender parity across all pay groups.
Table 3: Mean and median hourly pay gaps over time (2017-2021)
| 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | % point change from 2020 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mean gender pay gap - ordinary pay | 10.9% | 9.4% | 8.4% | 7.0% | 5.0% | -2% |
| Median gender pay gap - ordinary pay | 13.2% | 12.4% | 6.1% | 2.7% | 1.0% | -1.7% |
Mean and median bonus pay gaps
For the purposes of Gender Pay Gap reporting, references made to bonuses is referring to performance payments made to Natural England’s employees. Specifically, these are the non-consolidated payments made under the In-Year Performance Payment Scheme as part of the pay award, where a sum is paid to recipients of an end-of-year performance rating. Natural England’s end-of-year 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 are pro-rated for staff who work 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 men receiving a bonus payment | Proportion of women receiving a bonus payment |
|---|---|
| 41% | 44% |
The mean bonus pay gap has decreased from 0.9% to 0.6% since 2020. The median bonus pay gap, which has remained at 0% since 2017, saw an increase of 160% in favour of women in 2020 due to changes in the way bonus payments were paid to employees receiving 1,2, and 3 performance ratings where previously payments were made only for ratings 1 and 2. This year, falling back in line with previous years, the median bonus pay gap for men and women is equal at 0%.
In this reporting year, 41% of men received bonus payments. A higher percentage of women (44%) received bonus payments. The percentage of women receiving bonus payments was slightly higher than that of men as there are proportionately more women than men in Natural England (56% women and 44% men overall).
Table 4: Bonus pay gap figures 2017-2021
| Bonus pay gap | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | % point change from 2020 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mean gender pay gap - bonus pay in 12 months ending 31 March | 20% | 21.9% | 0.5% | 0.9% | 0.6% | -0.3% |
| Median gender pay gap - bonus pay in 12 months ending 31 March | 0% | 0% | 0% | -160% | 0% | +160% |
| Proportion of male employees paid a bonus in 12 months ending 31 March | 87% | 44% | 40% | 91% | 41% | -50% |
| Proportion of female employees paid a bonus in 12 months ending 31 March | 89% | 37% | 44% | 92% | 44% | -48% |
Pay by quartiles
The quartiles have remained relatively constant in relation to previous years. The percentage of women reduces 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 and fourth quartiles has increased in comparison to the previous year.
| Hourly pay quartile | Women | Men |
|---|---|---|
| Lower quartile | 56% | 44% |
| Lower middle quartile | 62% | 38% |
| Upper middle quartile | 59% | 41% |
| Upper quartile | 44% | 56% |
The following table[footnote 2] shows the percentage of men and women in each pay quartile since 2017.
Table 5: Pay quartiles 2017-2021
| Year % | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| M F | M F | M F | M F | M F | |
| Lower quartile | 44 56 | 44 56 | 41 59 | 44 56 | 42 58 |
| Lower middle | 34 66 | 36 64 | 38 62 | 38 62 | 41 59 |
| Upper middle | 42 58 | 42 58 | 46 54 | 41 59 | 39 61 |
| Upper quartile | 61 39 | 57 43 | 56 44 | 56 44 | 53 47 |
Taking action to close the gender pay gap
Natural England aspires to be one of the most inclusive employers 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.
Natural England has created an increased focus on implementing, monitoring, and measuring progress against actions that help to close the pay gap. We work in collaboration with our employee diversity networks, our Pay, Reward and Equality, Diversity and Inclusion teams to ensure we have the right focus on this work. We continue with programmes and initiatives that are already making a difference:
Providing active support for women returning to work following maternity or adoption leave. We offer shared parental leave, job share, part-time working opportunities and flexible working for all our employees.
We support a range of employee led networks championed by Senior Leaders. In addition to Natural England’s Gender Equality Network and Pregnancy and Parenting network we also have cross Defra Group Job Share, Solo Parents and a Work Life Balance Network.
Our Networks aim to raise awareness, provide constructive challenge to the organisation and contribute to policy development. Key issues are escalated through the Natural England People Committee or the Defra Group gender board.
We monitor pay to identify any pay differences and take targeted action to ensure our processes are fair and transparent.
We continue to review and refresh our approach to resourcing to ensure the recruitment of people of genders at all levels is inclusive. We anonymise our application processes and use diverse interview panels for selection. We monitor recruitment data throughout the attraction, recruitment and selection processes to identify areas for further improvement in achieving greater diversity in our workforce.
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
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‘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. ↩
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Table includes rounding ↩