Gender PayGap Summary
Accent Catering Services Ltd is committed to the principles of equal opportunities and equal treatment for all employees regardless of sex, race, religion or belief, age, pregnancy/maternity, sexual orientation, gender reassignment or disability. It has a clear policy of paying employees equally for the same or equivalent work, regardless of their sex or any other characteristic set out above. Our commitment to equal opportunities is supported by our Equal Opportunities and Diversity policies. Accent Catering Services Ltd is therefore confident that its gender pay gap does not stem from paying men and women differently for the same or equivalent work. Whilst our pay rates do vary from unit to unit depending on the budget that each client has set, we are satisfied that there is no difference between male and female employees for the same job. Rather the gender pay gap that exists is the result of the roles in which men and women work within the organisation and the salaries that these roles attract.
When analysing the mean and median hourly rate, there is a gender pay gap of 27.9% and 35.28% respectively, which we are aware is higher than the national averages. However it is important to note that women make up 92.2% of the staff in the lowest two pay quartiles Band A and Band B which significantly impacts on this data. Accent Catering Services Ltd operates predominantly in the catering education industry and the majority of the roles in Band A and Band B are part-time term-time only Catering Assistant positions; these are lower paid roles which have traditionally been dominated by women within the UK. This factor has strongly influenced both our gender pay and bonus gaps.
Women make up nearly half of the upper quartile Band D (43.43% women; 56.57% men) so it is important to note that women are not underrepresented at the most senior level. There are a large range of salaries in this quartile (£11.85 – £45.68) and on analysing the data further, within Band D there is a mean gender pay gap of 3.01% which is well below the national average. Taking all this into account therefore, we are confident that the gender pay gap that exists within the company as a whole is the result of the large proportion of women who make up the lower quartiles which is beyond the scope of the organisation’s capacity for action as this is a society wide issue. The company has for example no direct control over the fact that the vast majority of applications for the lower paid term-time only jobs are from women who are looking for hours to fit around their children. As we are all aware, women have traditionally taken on the caregiving role for children to a far greater extent than men. However, Accent Catering Services Ltd is committed to doing everything that it can to reduce the gender pay gap including the following:-
- Creating an evidence base – to identify any barriers to gender equality and inform priorities for action e.g. the proportions of men and women applying for jobs and being recruited, the proportions of men and women applying for and obtaining promotions and the proportions of men and women leaving the organisation and their reasons for leaving.
- Continuing to ensure that employees who are selected for progression into senior roles are made up of equal numbers of men and women.
- Ensuring that our equal opportunities policies are adhered to at all levels of the organisation.
Although this will not remove the gender pay gap that exists, we hope this will have some impact in reducing it particularly within the upper quartile and we will continue to monitor our progress in this area.
