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RSH reveals 20% ethnicity pay gap

BAME people working at the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) were paid 20% less on average than their white colleagues in 2019/20, the body has revealed.

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BAME people working at the Regulator of Social Housing were paid 20% less on average than their white colleagues in 2019/20, the body has revealed #UKhousing

England’s social housing regulator voluntarily released the data for the first time today as part of its annual equality information report, which is compulsory for public bodies with at least 150 employees.

Updated figures on the gender pay gap at the RSH have also been published, showing an improvement from the previous year.

Of 161 people employed by the RSH at the end of March last year, 16% were from a BAME background, with 83% non-ethnic minority and 2% undeclared.

The mean pay gap between BAME and white staff over 2019/20 was 20.28% in favour of the latter, while the median gap was 16.8%.

These figures are based on overall average salaries across the organisation and are not a measure of pay for equivalent roles.

A lack of people from BAME backgrounds in the top pay quartile was blamed for the gap.

Only 2.5% of people in the highest pay quartile were BAME, compared with 22.5% in the bottom quartile.


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The figures come on the same day that the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, set up by the government following the Black Lives Matter protests last summer, declared that the UK “no longer” has a system rigged against BAME people.

One of the RSH’s core values is to “embrace diversity and seek to be an inclusive and supportive organisation”.

It said it had published the figures because “it is best practice and transparent to fully support the regulations regarding equal pay across the public sector” and that they will act as a benchmark for measuring future performance.

Addressing the ethnicity pay gap will mean it is “necessary to look at staff recruitment and retention”, the RSH’s report said.

“We have a number of actions in progress which will help to support increased diversity in recruitment, particularly at senior levels,” it added.

“With management support, our staff have established a BAME network where staff will be able to contribute insight and make recommendations to attract and retain BAME candidates particularly at senior manager level and above.

“We are also committed to positive action in our recruitment, ensuring that BAME candidates make up at least 20% of all shortlists and adding candidates to achieve that level, where they pass the benchmark for job applications, if it is not achieved, or exceeded, via the initial sift.”

In its second report on gender pay, the RSH also revealed that women were paid 11.31% less than men as a mean in 2019/20, with the gap shrinking by 3.92 percentage points compared with the previous year.

The median gender pay gap for 2019/20 was 15.94%, down from 17.54% in 2018/19.

There was also a mean bonus gap of 0.41% in favour of men, a marked reduction from the 6.34% gap recorded for 2018/19, which the RSH said was based on a higher percentage of female staff working part-time.

“Our overall gender pay gap is primarily a result of a higher concentration of female staff in the more middle/junior roles of the organisation,” the report said.

Despite 63% of the RSH’s overall employees being female, only 55% of staff in the top pay quartile were women in 2019/20.

In the lower middle quartile, 70% were women, with the figure for the bottom quartile 65%.

The proportion of women in the top pay quartile in 2018/19 was 47%, with the figures for the lower-middle and bottom quartile 74% and 65% respectively.

This “significant shift” in the balance of the top quartile is down to “the success of female candidates in recent recruitments”, the RSH said.

“We have a number of actions in progress which will help to address the gender pay gap including a gender-neutral employment strategy and use of mixed gender panels for interviews wherever possible,” the report added.

“We have seen an increase in the numbers of senior female staff and continue staff development to ensure that all our staff who want to progress are as well-equipped as possible to be able to access opportunities for advancement when they arise.”

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