Transparency data

Natural England gender pay gap report 2022

Published 30 March 2023

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 2022, with comparable statistical information since 2017. As an organisation we are accountable and open to challenge and scrutiny. Gender pay gap reporting helps us to understand how well we achieve gender equality in our pay structures.

We are pleased to report that both our mean (3.8%) and median (0.3%) gender pay gaps have reduced this year (reduction of 1.2% mean, 0.7% median) maintaining a continuous downward trend since 2017. 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 close 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 address 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.

Kirsty Carter-Brown
Chief Officer, Business Management

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

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.^{[footnote 1]}

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
3.8%	0.3%	10%	0%

Proportion of women receiving a bonus payment	Proportion of men receiving a bonus payment
73%	74%

Quartile	Female %	Male %
Lower quartile	58	42
Lower middle quartile	62	38
Upper middle quartile	60	40
Upper quartile	51	49

Natural England group	Female %
Total workforce	57
Principal Adviser, Manager and Principal Specialist	53
Director / Chief Officer and Executive	55

Organisational 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 (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 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

Women make up 57% of NE’s workforce. The next table shows the distribution of female and male staff by grade from junior to senior roles in Natural England. There are more women in junior grades, where pay is lower. Representation of women at senior levels of the organisation is increasing.

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	63	5.8%	56	3.8%
Adviser	146	13.4%	180	12.2%
Lead Adviser / Group Co-ordinator / Specialist	370	34.1%	562	37.9%
Senior Adviser / Team Leader / Senior Specialist	360	33.1%	515	34.8%
Principal Adviser / Manager / Principal Specialist	129	11.9%	148	10%
Directors / Chief Officer / CEO	12	1.1%	15	1%
Board Member	6	0.6%	5	0.3%
Total workforce: (2,567 people) (includes rounding)	1,086	100%	1,481	100%

Mean and median hourly pay gaps

The mean gender pay gap (3.8%) has reduced by 1.2% since 2021 when it stood at 5%. The median gender pay gap at 0.3% has also reduced, by 0.7% since 2021. Whilst there have been increases in the proportions of women in senior roles 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 (2017-2022)

	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	change from 2021
Mean gender pay gap - ordinary pay	10.9%	9.4%	8.4%	7.0%	5.0%	3.8%	1.2%
Median gender pay gap - ordinary pay	13.2%	12.4%	6.1%	2.7%	1.0%	0.3%	0.7%

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. End-of-year 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 (32% of women work part time in comparison to 11% of men who 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
74%	73%

Over the last reporting period the mean bonus pay gap has widened, increasing from 0.6% to 10%. Data for new entrants in this reporting period showed 539 new entrants into Natural England (330 women and 209 men). New starters are generally less likely to receive performance related bonuses partly due to being new into the role and also being in post for a shorter amount of time which may have impacted the overall mean bonus pay awards.

The median bonus pay gap, which has remained at 0% since 2017 means there is no difference in the median or middle value of bonuses awarded to men and women.

In this reporting year, 74% of men received bonus payments and 73% of women received bonus payments.

Table 4: Bonus pay gap figures 2017-2022

Bonus pay gap	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	% point change from 2021
Mean gender pay gap - bonus pay in 12 months ending 31 March	20%	21.9%	0.5%	0.9%	0.6%	10%	-9.4%
Median gender pay gap - bonus pay in 12 months ending 31 March	0%	0%	0%	-160%	0%	0%	0%
Proportion of male employees paid a bonus in 12 months ending 31 March	87%	44%	40%	91%	41%	74%	33%
Proportion of female employees paid a bonus in 12 months ending 31 March	89%	37%	44%	92%	44%	73%	29%

Pay by quartiles

The quartiles have remained relatively constant in relation to previous years. The percentage of women reduces in the higher quartiles however, the percentage of women in the fourth or highest quartile has increased in comparison to the previous year.

Hourly pay quartile	Men	Women
Lower quartile	42%	58%
Lower middle quartile	38%	62%
Upper middle quartile	40%	60%
Upper quartile	49%	51%

The following table^{[footnote 2]} shows the percentage of men and women in each pay quartile since 2017.

Table 5: Pay quartiles 2017-2022

Year %	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022
	M F	M F	M F	M F	M F	M F
Lower quartile	44 56	44 56	41 59	44 56	42 58	42 58
Lower middle	34 66	36 64	38 62	38 62	41 59	38 62
Upper middle	42 58	42 58	46 54	41 59	39 61	40 60
Upper quartile	61 39	57 43	56 44	56 44	53 47	49 51

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

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. ↩

2. Table includes rounding ↩