The Government has confirmed that due to the coronavirus they have decided to suspend the enforcement of the gender pay gap deadlines for this financial year. As a consequence, employers will not need to report their data.
Liz Truss, Minister for Women & Equalities, and EHRC Chair, David Isaac, EHRC Chair, issued a joint statement regarding the suspension:
“We recognise that employers across the country are facing unprecedented uncertainty and pressure at this time. Because of this we feel it is only right to suspend enforcement of gender pay gap reporting this year.”
The deadline for public sector organisation’s to submit their gender pay gap data was meant to be on Monday (30th March), with private companies being required to submit their reports on Saturday 4th April.
This news means that employers will not be hit with any penalties as a result of not submitting their gender pay gap report. Although, it is understood that 3,000 businesses have already done so – which is roughly 26% of businesses who were expected to submit their data.
Despite the suspension, employers are still being encouraged to submit their data, once things return to normal. Senior Reward Adviser at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), Charles Cotton, commented:
“Given the reporting data is based on a snapshot date in April last year, most employers will already have the data already, and most of their narrative too. It should just be a question of delaying their reporting to when the current crisis has passed.
“Longer term, we urge companies to continue to honour their reporting commitments. The coronavirus stands to have a disproportionate impact on women in the labour market, because of the high proportion of women working in retail and hospitality. This makes it more important than ever that we don’t take our eye off the ball and risk losing momentum in our efforts to close the gender pay gap.”
Comment
This move will be welcomed by employers who are all trying to deal with the urgent and immediate issues presented by the coronavirus situation.
However, in the longer term, we anticipate that equal pay and other equality issues will return to the fore and so employers should not ignore these issues completely.
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Laura Kearsley is a Partner in our expert Employment Law team.
For further information on how the subjects discussed in this article, please contact Laura or another member of the team in Derby, Leicester or Nottingham on 0800 024 1976 or via our online form.