Gender Pay Gap Reports

Organisations with 250 or more employees are mandated by the government to report annually on their gender pay gap.  The requirements of the mandate within the Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017, are to publish information relating to pay for six specific measures as detailed in this report.

Previously, the NHS Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) in Lancashire and South Cumbria were not required to report gender pay gap information as each organisation had less than 250 employees.

Following the statutory establishment of the NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board (ICB) in July 2022, the ICB now has a requirement to report on the gender pay gap, as the organisation has more than 250 employees.  The Government’s Equality Office has advised that the first date for public reporting for ICBs is by the 4 April 2024 annually. This year, the ICB is required to collect baseline data as of the 31 March 2023 in readiness to publish at the end of March 2024.

The report is based on the Government’s methodology for calculating difference in pay between female and male employees, considering full pay relevant employees of NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria ICB.  As of the 31 March 2023 snapshot pay period, the ICB employed 535 full-pay relevant employees, comprising of 75% female employees and 25% male employees.

In producing this report, it is recognised that the ICB is a newly established organisation which has seen significant changes in the composition and size of its workforce since July 2022. As such, we have more work to do to reduce, and ultimately close, our gender pay gap. As part of the ICB’s commitment to cultivating a fair, inclusive and equal working environment, the outcomes of this report will feed into the ICB’s wider plans around organisational development, culture and inclusion such as the ICS Belonging Plan.

The table below illustrates the differences in average (mean) and median hourly pay rates for male and female ICB employees.

Across the organisation, as of 31 March 2023, the mean gender pay gap was 34.3% meaning that male employees were being paid an average of £14.35 more per hour than female employees.

The median gender pay gap (which demonstrates the difference between the midpoints in the ranges of hourly earnings) was 29.7% meaning that male employees were paid £10.31 more per hour than female employees.

While there is a gender pay gap within our organisation, this is not the same as saying female and male employees are being paid differently for doing the same job (which would be an equal pay issue).

NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria ICB (LSC ICB) does not have a bonus gender pay gap.  Since its statutory establishment, the ICB has not paid bonuses to its employees. There is no scope for bonus payments within the Agenda for Change terms and conditions of service.

The table below illustrates the headcount of male and female employees who fell within the four pay quartiles (where quartile 1 is the lowest paid and quartile 4 is the highest paid).

Overall, in LSC ICB, women occupy 53% of the highest paid jobs and 84% of the lowest paid jobs and men occupy 47% of the highest paid jobs and 16% of the lowest paid jobs.

Where Census 2021 data tells us that 51% of the population of England are female, 75% of the ICB workforce was made up of female employees. Furthermore, 53% of LSC ICB employees in the upper pay quartile of employees were female.

As of 31 March 2023, LSC ICB had six Non-Executive Board Members, three whom are women and four Executive Board Members two who are women.

Recognising that there are smaller proportions of male employees in the lowest 3 pay quartiles compared to population data is a significant driver for the ICB’s overall gender pay gap.

This means that reducing our gender pay gap (as defined by the Government) implies either increasing the proportion of male employees in quartiles 1 to 3, or increasing the proportion of female employees occupying in the most senior roles (quartile 4).

Effective policies for closing the gender pay gap not only seek to address factors and barriers common to all women (such as the number in lower grade jobs with lower pay), as well as target inequalities faced by women belonging to specific groups, based on characteristics such as age, ethnicity, and profession.

To make the improvements that we are seeking to achieve, collaboration will be required across a range of ICB functions (led by the Culture and Inclusion Team) to enable inclusive leadership, develop effective mechanisms to track progress on workforce diversity, and improve our approaches to inclusive recruitment. Furthermore, this will need to be aligned to existing/emerging plans to tackle inequalities and improve diversity within our workforce such as the ICS Belonging Plan and ICB WRES/WDES action plans.

Relevant existing priorities within the recently published ICS Belonging Plan include: 

• Implementing a widening participation programme to attract diverse talent from local communities.
• Developing guidelines and specialist training on inclusive recruitment and implementing a fair and inclusive recruitment process.
• Implementing a data-led approach to recruitment and talent progression.
• Using ESR data to understand the diversity of the workforce and Gender Pay Gap across all pay bands.

These priorities should provide the ICB with opportunities to reshape its employment profile in relation to the existing gender pay gap with a potential to improve representation by increasing the numbers of female employees in more senior roles and male employees in less senior roles.

All employee data contained in this report is extracted from LSC ICB Electronic Staff System (ESR) snapshot as of 31 March 2023.  The reporting period covers: 1st July 2022 (based on the ICB being established from 1st July 2022) – 31st March 2023. 

Hourly rate is calculated by using base pay.

Table 1: Definitions