The Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017 have been published in draft form and while they still await parliamentary approval the general view is that the new rules are unlikely to be challenged.

The statutory instrument is likely to be passed without opposition and is set to come into force on 6 April 2017.

Employers with 250 or more employees will have to publish information about the gender pay gap in their organisation.

Limited liability partnerships will be excluded from the requirement to report. The definition of ‘partner’ in the draft SI ‘includes a member of a limited liability partnership to which section 863(1) of the Income Tax (Trading and Other Income) Act 2005 applies’.

In particular, employers will have to publish:

• difference between average hourly rate of pay paid to male and female employees;
• difference between average bonus paid to male and female employees;
• proportion of male and of female employees who receive bonuses; and
• the relative proportions of male and female employees in each quartile pay band of the workforce.
• The draft regulations were put out for public consultation earlier this year and this latest version confirms that self-employed workers are mainly included within their scope although partners in firms are not.

There is also more information about how to calculate hourly pay.

Public sector

Plans to extend mandatory gender pay gap reporting to the public sector were the subject of another consultation, which closed on 30 September 2016. The government is yet to announce further developments.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has created a tool, Find out the gender pay gap for your job, which shows construction and building trades supervisors (45%) have the largest pay gap.

Laura Hinton, executive board member and head of people at PwC, said: ‘Publishing pay data alone will not change anything — progress will only happen if organisations use this as an opportunity to understand what’s happening in their business and make some fundamental changes as a result.’

The draft statutory instrument, The Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017, is available at http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukdsi/2017/9780111152010

A version of this article was first published on Croner-I Human Resources, part of Wolters Kluwer UK [20/12/2016]