Gender Pay Gap Report 2022/23 (as at 31 March 2023)

GENERAL EXPLANATORY NOTES:

‘Gender Pay Gap’ (GPG) is not the same as ‘Equal pay’. The latter refers to the difference between men and women’s pay for the same job, and is illegal; whereas the gender pay gap relates to the difference calculated between average earnings, irrespective of their roles in any given sector, and is a way of measuring gender equality in respect of equal access to, and take up of, all types and levels of roles within an organisation.
All calculations have been made as at 31 March 2023, in line with Government requirements for Public Sector bodies.
Lancaster & Morecambe College does not have a bonus pay scheme for any staff, so reporting requirements for bonuses are not applicable.
The mean calculation shows the difference between the mean average hourly rate of pay that male and female employees receive. Mean averages (division of total sum of all values by number of values) are useful because they place the same value on every number used, giving a good overall indication of the gender pay gap; however, very large or small pay rates can ‘dominate’ and distort the answer.
The median calculation shows the difference between the median hourly rate of pay that male and female full-pay relevant employees receive. Median averages (middle point in a list of all values from smallest to largest) are useful to indicate what the ‘typical’ situation is i.e. in the middle of an organisation, and are not distorted by very large or small pay rates or bonuses. However, this means that not all gender pay gap issues will be picked up.
Using these two different types of average is helpful to give a more balanced overview of an employer’s gender pay gap.
Quartiles: comparing the two results in each quartile will indicate the distribution of male and female employees in the quartile. Comparing results between the quartiles will indicate the distribution of male and female employees across the organisation.

MEAN AVERAGE LMC Mean Gender Pay Gap is: 9%

MEDIAN AVERAGE LMC Median Gender Pay Gap is: 8%

QUARTILES

	Male	Female
Lower Quartile	33%	67%
Lower Middle Quartile	29%	71%
Upper Middle Quartile	37%	63%
Upper Quartile	44%	56%

NOTE:

Quartile data is part of our statutory reporting requirement; it also demonstrates one reason for a decrease in GPG at LMC in 2023. Overall number of female staff in the lower and upper middle quartiles have decreased; in the lower middle and upper quartiles, they have increased from the previous year. This has been directly impacted by pay reviews during the year, with more female staff moving into a higher quartile. However small the differences from year to year, these fluctuations tend to have a disproportionate effect on the GPG, in particular because we have twice as many female staff as male.

CAUSAL ANALYSIS: what has contributed to the increases?

Analysis of the Mean GPG after a spike in 2021, we continue to see a healthy reduction in the mean GPG – what influencing factors can we attribute to this?

A further change to the gender and pay profile of the senior management team in summer 2022 has impacted the GPG.
In March 2022, there was a higher number of 3 female apprentices than male apprentices, being paid on the statutory apprentice wage (lower than NLW). In March 2023, this was evenly balanced. The lower apprentice pay rate therefore has not distorted the data in the same way as in the previous year.
In previous years, this report has detailed the impact of the Shortage Skills Allowance (SSA) paid to teaching staff in certain shortage skills areas. During the latter part of 2022, the SSA increased in range for some subject areas due to prevailing market conditions and a challenging recruitment environment. This included a small number of female staff.
Other differences in mean GPG are likely to be a combination of the contributory factors outlined in the Median GPG trend below.

Analysis of the 3-year Median GPG trend: this has seen a significant reduction to an all-time low – what are the influencing factors here?

A positive impact, arising from implementation of elements of the Pay Review and National Living Wage increases between April and November 2022, are evident in the GPG data. A high proportion of female staff work in lower paid support roles, which have received proportionately higher pay increases.
Twice as many teachers at the top of the lecturer scale who benefitted from the additional pay point awarded in November, were female than male.

Other factors potentially impacting the year on year fluctuations in GPG:

Since the staff restructure and reductions in 2019, total numbers have been closer to the minimum number of 250, above which GPG reporting is mandatory. However, staff numbers have started to increase again in 2022 & 2023. (Note, these numbers relate to headcount, not FTE. LMC has a significant proportion of part-time staff.)
It is helpful to consider the distribution of female and male staff across the organisation, and the year on year fluctuations within this distribution. With the College’s relatively small number of staff, and twice the number of females to males, the median GPG seems particularly sensitive to variation.

SUMMARY GENDER PAY GAP COMMENT

While some specific explanations have been identified for the LMC Gender Pay Gap, there are broader trends in play across the whole staff profile, which are common to our sector.

Comparison with data published by other NW colleges suggests that the gender of the College Principal / senior staff, alongside the extent to which there is a predominance of female staff in the lower/upper quartiles (including the fact that some lower paid and often predominantly female roles such as cleaning and catering are contracted out by some colleges and therefore not part of their pay gap calculation), can have an impact on these extremely sensitive mean and median measures.

Last year we reported that since one of the main factors impacting the LMC gender pay gap appears to be the higher proportion of female staff in the lower quartiles (a trend likely to continue), it is the case that the start of a reversal of the gender pay gap will only be feasible alongside the ability to start to reverse the longer-term chronic depression of wages within the organisation. Having made modest pay improvements during 22/23, there is evidence here in this data that it has indeed resulted in some improvement to the gender pay gap.

Angela Bathgate
Director HR Strategy & Support, November 2023