The Requirements of the Equality Act 2010

This major piece of legislation has been created to streamline equality laws in the UK. The condensing of nine separate legislative frameworks into one single law is a significant contribution to promoting equity across a wide range of areas.

The Equality Act received Royal assent in April 2010. Amongst the provisions contained in the Act are those concerned with improving the reporting of gender pay gaps. These can be summarised as follows:

Public sector organisations with more than 150 employees will be required to extend reporting on gender pay to other equality areas defined as ‘Protected groups’. These groups are defined as:

• Race
• Disability
• Sex
• Gender Reassignment
• Age
• Sexual Orientation
• Religion or Belief
• Pregnancy and Maternity.

Whilst many of the specific requirements on Equality reporting are yet to be defined by Special Public Duty regulations, the need to extend data monitoring and reporting beyond just gender is clear. The Special Duty regulations will be different across the UK due to the devolved responsibility for this area.

So, what can you do to prepare for these requirements?

• Implement or review your job evaluation system. Job evaluation allows you to analyse, monitor and justify pay differentials and is vital in providing a robust defence against an equal pay challenge.
• Look at your gender pay gap and be able to analyse, understand and report on it.
   

We know that collecting and analysing data can require a significant commitment of time and resources, we have developed purpose built software tools to facilitate the analysis of your data and limit the effort required. For more information click here.