Employment Rights Bill

The Employment Rights Bill will strengthen employers’ obligations on gender pay gap reporting and supporting staff going through the menopause.

Currently, employers with 250 or more employees are required to publish gender pay information annually. Compliance has been patchy and progress in eliminating gender pay gaps remains slow.

To bolster this, the Bill provides that regulations may be published requiring employers with 250 or more employees to develop and publish ‘equality actions plans’ on an annual basis. These plans will have to set out the steps the employer is taking in relation to addressing its gender pay gap and to supporting employees going through the menopause. The action plan will have to meet the minimum standards to be set out in regulations, which will also deal with the consequences of non-compliance.

Regulations will also require employers to identify the providers/employers of contract workers. This does not mean that gender pay gap data must include data reflecting what contract workers are paid. It seems simply to be a requirement to name the providers/employers of those contract workers.