Gender pay scheme flops

A government initiative to encourage companies to report on the gender pay gap among their staff and actions to address failings, has fallen flat with only four companies disclosing their pay gap.

The “Think, Act, Report” scheme was launched with great fanfare in 2011, with over 200 companies pledging support. However, three years on, the government has revealed in response to a parliamentary question from Labour’s shadow women and equalities minister Gloria De Piero that only four companies have published details of their gender pay gap.

Only two firms — Friends Life and Genesis Housing – provided detailed pay gap information broken down by grade; the other two — Tesco and AstraZeneca —only provided general figures on the pay gap.

According to De Piero, the scheme had “flopped” because it had “been given no priority” by a government which only paid “lip service” to equal pay.

www.theguardian.com/money/2014/aug/12/gender-pay-gap-coalition-scheme