Acas gender pay gap report 2023

The current requirement for gender pay gap reporting is that we report in a binary way rather than including non-binary or other identities.

The figures show:

• 59% of our workforce are women – this is the same as in 2022
• 57% of our senior civil servants are women – this is a 14% increase from 2022 and a 40% increase in the last 2 years

The figures show:

• our mean (average) hourly pay gap is 5.7%
• our median hourly pay gap is 0.6%

In the financial year 2022 to 2023, overall headcount decreased from 1,028 to 1,011, a decrease of 1.7%. We have seen an increase in female representation of 2% and 14% at grade 6 and 7 and senior civil servant respectively, our senior grades.

These changes in the demographic of our workforce have resulted in some improvements in gender pay gap figures. These show an improved mean pay gap of 5.7%, down from 7.2% in 2021 to 2022, and a large decrease in our median pay gap to 0.6%, down from 6.1% in 2021 to 2022. 

In the 2022 to 2023 financial year Acas paid an equal rate reward payment to all eligible staff. This approach explains the annual change in the proportion of people receiving bonuses and the 0% median bonus pay gap.

The figure is not 100% as there have been new starters since the award was paid who did not qualify for this payment.

The figures show:

• 95.5% of women were awarded a bonus
• 95.2% of men were awarded a bonus
• the mean bonus pay gap is 12.1%
• the median bonus pay gap is 0%

The table below shows the proportion of women and men in each pay quartile for Acas. It shows that there is a higher proportion of women in all quartiles except the upper pay quartile, where the split is more even.

Proportion of men and women in each quartile

The Acas Senior Leadership team is committed to fair pay irrespective of gender.

We will continue to build on actions and initiatives aimed at eradicating the gender pay gap, including:

• continuing to offer flexibility by default utilising a hybrid working model, allowing colleagues to work from home or other suitable locations more frequently
• support for women returning to work through shared parental leave, job sharing, compressed hours, part-time, remote working (including working from home) and term-time only opportunities – plus, encouraging men to also take advantage of flexible working arrangements as well as shared parental leave
• continuing to monitor pay to identify pay differences and take targeted action where appropriate, within Civil Service pay controls
• taking a more proactive approach towards monitoring our reward and recognition system allowing us to focus on the opportunities all staff will have to demonstrate their contributions ensuring fairness across all grades and gender
• continuing our approach to anonymise the job application process to reduce the potential for bias and making sure that all panel members have undergone recruitment training which includes ensuring diversity and success profiles
• continuing to use recruitment panels which are diverse in terms of gender and ethnicity
• focus on different recruitment processes, in line with Civil Service Principles, that allows those with limited employment history to actively demonstrate their skills at interview
• helping women progress in their careers through clear conversations focused on performance and development, which encourages line managers to have an open ongoing dialogue with staff on career opportunities and progression

Mean (average) gender pay gap

• The mean hourly rate is the average hourly wage across the entire organisation.
• The mean gender pay gap measures the difference between the women's mean hourly wage and the men's mean hourly wage.

Median gender pay gap

• The median hourly rate is calculated by ranking all employees from the highest paid to the lowest paid, and taking the hourly wage of the person in the middle.
• The median gender pay gap is the difference between the women's median hourly wage (the middle paid woman) and the men's median hourly wage (the middle paid man).