Audit Commission paid female employees £10,000 less than men
Watchdog created pay gap ‘on purpose’
The Audit Commission deliberately created a £10,000 pay gap between male and female employees in its housing inspections department, according to a tribunal.
The watchdog was told it had ‘directly and knowingly’ created a pay disparity between men and women in its housing inspections department who held the same jobs. The commission had initially refused to reveal whether the case, originally heard last year, related to its housing function - but this week Inside Housing obtained a copy of the judgement.
The commission is contesting this decision and is taking the case to the Employment Appeal Tribunal.
Nine female employees brought the case against the commission, arguing that from October 2007, they were carrying out similar work to male members of staff who were earning more.
The difference was caused by a restructure which saw the roles of inspection and information officers and senior inspection and information officers merged to create inspection support officers.
All the IIOs were female and on lower pay than the SIIOs - who were all male - who took ISO positions.
After a number of the women raised the pay gap with human resources, their salary was increased to bring it closer to the wages paid to the men. But the tribunal learnt that there was still a gap of at least £5,000 between the highest paid woman and the lowest paid man. There was no evidence that higher pay was a result of greater skills or experience.
The tribunal also said the Audit Commission could have restructured the roles without an equal pay problem. In its judgement, published in December 2009, the tribunal said: ‘What the respondent has done is directly and knowingly create a pay disparity of, at its maximum, more than £10,000 between men and women doing the same work.
‘This was not fortuitous, it was deliberate, and the respondent created this situation well aware that it was being suggested by the claimants and indeed their own HR department that such a policy had equal pay implications.’
The Audit Commission continues to contest the case, which has cost £29,200 to date for the hearing and forthcoming appeal. It said it was not able to comment because of the ongoing nature of the case.
What the tribunal found
‘What the respondent has done is directly and knowingly create a pay disparity of, at its maximum, more than £10,000 between men and women doing the same work.
‘This was not fortuitous, it was deliberate, and the respondent created this situation well aware that it was being suggested by the claimants and indeed their own HR department that such a policy had equal pay implications.’
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Readers' comments (4)
worried well | 23/04/2010 10:28 am
OOooooh you naughty little Audit Commission!
I wonder what you would score local authorities or housing associations for such a transgression? No stars with very few prospects for improvement?
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Housing Professional | 23/04/2010 11:28 am
Oh dear! if the audit commission are cooking the books then god help us all! what else have they been hiding and they expect us to trsut them when they come and do inspections? what a joke!
will anybody take the blame?
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Disgusted | 23/04/2010 2:46 pm
They should just be shut down- £10m lost in Iceland, now this scandal. How have they got the cheek to assess anyones competence. How much does the housing element of AA cost anyway- bet it would go a long way to helping cut public expenditure if they were just quietly done away with
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Steve | 23/04/2010 4:09 pm
I agree with Disgusted.
This is absolutely priceless! That such an organisation monitors others on equality issues and can even cost them tens and hundreds of £millions in so doing beggars belief. What value they add has certainly been questionnable at times and this brings into question if anyone can take them seriously from now on. Perhaps they could be done away with in a blaze of publicity about how great the resultant efficiencies would be?
The only down side is that obviously some other similar organisation would replace it.
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