Selected News
Gender Pay Gap Narrows - But 'More to be Done,' says Minister
Figures released on the 10th November from the Office of National Statistics pointed to a fall in the gender pay gap. The gap has dropped from 17.4% in 1998 to 13.2% in 2005. Tessa Jowell, Minister for Women, welcomed the statement saying, "It is excellent news that the gender pay gap is now at its lowest level in 30 years since the introduction of the Equal Pay Act." In 1975, women earned 70p for every £1 a man received, while today women receive 83p. Women now earn an average of £9.82 an hour and men £11.31 an hour.
The minister accepted however that there was more to be done. She commented, "We must close the pay and skills gap further to ensure women have higher lifetime earnings and higher pensions. Our next step will be to take forward the recommendations from the Women and Work Commission's Report, which we look forward to receiving in January."
Further information:
ONS figures are available at: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/ (will open in a new window)
The mean gender pay gap has fallen from 30% in 1975 to 17.2% in 2005.
Consultation Closed On Draft Legislation To Outlaw Age Discrimination
The Government consulted on proposals to legislate on age discrimination in "Coming of Age". The consultation ended on 17 October. Subject to Parliamentary approval the legislation will come into force on 1 October 2006. Carol Bates commented, "The new legislation will raise significant issues about non discrimination against older and younger members of the workforce. In many ways, it will be quite unlike any other form of anti-discrimination legislation we have yet seen. After all, we are all of us at some time younger, and destined to be older members of the workforce, so judging the category of people who are potentially the subject of discrimination will raise new challenges. HR professionals will have to review their recruitment tools such as application forms and policy statements to ensure that they are in line with the ethos of the new legislation. The regulations will raise important issues in terms of the skills demanded in managing an older workforce, and organisations should be thinking about this now."
The draft regulations:
- prohibit unjustified age discrimination in employment and vocational training
- require employers who set their retirement age below the default age of 65 to justify or change it
- introduce a new duty on employers to consider an employee's request to continue working beyond retirement
- require employers to inform employees in writing, and at least 6 months in advance, of their intended retirement date. This will allow people to plan for their retirement
- remove the upper age limit for unfair dismissal and redundancy rights, giving older workers the same rights to claim unfair dismissal or receive a redundancy payment as younger workers, unless there is a genuine retirement
- include provisions relating to service related benefits and occupational pensions
The regulations also remove the age limits for Statutory Sick Pay, Statutory Maternity Pay, Statutory Adoption Pay and Statutory Paternity Pay. The DTI say they continue to take steps to gauge stakeholder opinion on changes to the method of calculation of statutory redundancy payments. At present there is a lower scale of payment for those below the age of 41 and a tapering down of statutory payments in the last year before the 65th birthday. This is by definition discriminatory. It will be interesting to see what solution results.
Further information: See the Consultation Document "Equality and Diversity: Coming of Age": http://www.dti.gov.uk/er/equality/consultation_doc_2006.pdf (will open in a new window)
[return to Newsletter December 2005]
Equality Bill Near Completion
Amendments to the Government's Equality Bill, tabled by Lord Alli and Lord Lester and approved by Parliament on the 9th November, will enable regulations to be made to prohibit discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation in the provision of goods, facilities and services. Alan Johnson, Secretary of State at the DTI said, "This Government has made significant strides towards equality for lesbian, gay and bisexual people. We have equalised the age of consent, we have outlawed discrimination at work, and we are introducing civil partnerships. But lesbian, gay and bisexual people can still face unacceptable discrimination in their everyday lives - for example, being turned away from hotels, or getting a raw deal from medical or other service providers. That's simply not fair, and we're committed to putting it right."
The Equality Bill, which is near to completing its passage through Parliament will:
- establish the new single Commission for Equality and Human Rights (CEHR)
- make discrimination on the grounds of religion or belief in the provision of goods and services unlawful;
- create a duty on public authorities to promote equality of opportunity between men and women (the gender duty) and to prohibit sex discrimination in the exercise of public functions.
The scope of the regulations will be subject to full public consultation.
New CAC Members Include Cullen Scholefield PAC Candidate
Twelve new members of Central Arbitration Committee (CAC) were today announced in October by Employment Relations Minister Gerry Sutcliffe. The new members, have been appointed to assist the CAC with their expanding role in dealing with The Information and Consultation of Employee Regulations 2004. Gerry Sutcliffe, Minister of State at the DTI said, "The wealth of experience of the new members will be of great benefit in taking forward the Committees work in handling Information and Consultation." Chris Ball, one of the new members, who is also a Cullen Scholefield PAC candidate said, "The CAC has an important statutory role in dealing with collective employee relations issues. It is important that it has people of experience serving on it and I am pleased to have this opportunity of making a contribution"
