I am writing to seek your support for a campaign to immediately reinstate all Gender Pay Gap (GPG) reporting requirements.
In March last year, when the Government announced that the enforcement of the GPG reporting deadlines was suspended for the year to help alleviate pressure on organisations during COVID, the pandemic’s toll on business, and in particular on women in business, was unknown.
The impact of the pandemic on working women is now clear. Research shows that women are more likely to work in shut-down sectors, are at greater risk of job losses and are taking on the majority of housework and childcare; the pressures of the pandemic are even driving some women to consider scaling back or leaving their careers. CMI’s own research has shown that amongst managers expecting redundancies in 2021, 80% said that measures to ensure that redundancies did not fall disproportionately on women had not been implemented, or they did not know if they had.
We had hoped that the GPG reporting requirement would be reinstated for 2021, but only last week the government’s Equalities Hub said that a decision had not been reached on whether reporting would be compulsory in 2021. As the Government prepares its plans to re-open the economy and build back better, GPG reporting is critical to understanding the impact of the pandemic on women, and to hold organisations accountable for developing quality action plans to to better support, retain and promote women, and to access the economic benefits that gender balanced workplaces bring. The Government’s figure of £484 per year for a large private sector organisation to comply with GPG reporting represents just a tiny fraction of the profit gains potentially available to those achieving gender balance.
Reinstating GPG reporting will help drive the UK’s recovery plan, and I want to ask for your help today. Firstly, if you can, please sign the petition, and cascade within your networks so that we can demonstrate the scale of support for this issue. Secondly, please consider how else you can make your voice heard, either through your personal or organisation’s social media channels, or by writing to your MP to call for immediate action. If it’s helpful, CMI has put together a GPG reporting briefing note containing key research and statistics.
Let’s make 2021 the year that we fully recognise the economic benefit of gender balanced workplaces and ensure we build a sustainable and inclusive economy. If we are truly to build back better, we must ensure we continue to take great strides forwards, not a step backwards.
Margaret
www.mheffernan.com
