READING Borough Council has continued to narrow the pay gap between its male and female employees, according to its latest figures.
The annual Gender Pay Gap Report examines the difference in pay and bonuses for full-time council employees based on their gender.
The report shows that the mean hourly rate for men is still around 2% higher than that of women.
Men earn £16.68 an hour on average compared to £16.33 for women, a shortfall of 55p an hour, or 2.06%.
Last year’s report showed that in the 2019/2020 period, women were paid 5% less than men on average.
This year’s pay gap of just over 2% is smaller than the UK average of 7.9%, according to the Office for National Statistics’s data for the same time period.
This follows a period of continuous narrowing of the pay gap.
The report also compares the amount of bonus pay received by men and women, as well as the proportion of employees of each gender who received bonuses.
Last year’s figures showed that on average, women were paid 6.6% less than men in bonuses in 2019/2020.
Figures for 2020/2021 show that the difference has now shrunk to just 2.8%.
However, this two percent difference in bonus pay could be attributed to a single employee, due to how bonuses are paid to council employees.
All employee bonuses are set at a one-off award of £1000, though portions of bonus pay can be swapped for extra days of leave.
The report indicates that of the 30 employees who were eligible for bonuses, only one chose a smaller bonus in exchange for more leave.
The reduced bonus amount for this female employee affected the mean average of bonus pay for women as a whole, causing the gap.
The report also shows that the majority of employees at RBC are women, with only 41% of full-time employees being men.
