17 DECEMBER 2018

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The Equality and Human Rights Commission is today calling for employers to publish action plans to close their gender pay gaps, in light of data showing that only one in five have done so.

Fawcett Society Chief Executive Sam Smethers says:

“This data shows that the majority of employers are not publishing an action plan to close their pay gaps.  This is why Fawcett has consistently argued that publishing an action plan should be a statutory requirement.  Even fewer have set targets.  This is worrying and indicates that gender pay gap reporting in itself will fail to have the desired effect unless other steps are taken.”

Important findings include:

• only one in five employers sampled has produced an action plan to close the gender pay gap
• only 11% had set themselves targets that would enable them to measure progress of their plans year on year
• larger employers were more likely than smaller ones to set themselves targets, as employers with fewer than 499 staff were less likely to publish an action plan as part of their gender pay gap figures than larger ones

The EHRC has published this report looking at the impact of gender pay gap reporting, and an analysis of action plans published so far.

Read the Fawcett Society's briefing on gender pay gap reporting here.

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