Gender Pay-Gap: Women Earn 86p To Male Counterparts’ £1 At Waltham Forest Council

For everyone £1 that men earn at Waltham Forest Council, women earn just 86p.

According to data from the Waltham Forest Council gender pay gap report, women who work for the council earned 86p in hourly wages for every £1 that their male equivalent earned in 2018. 

In 2018, the report added that women’s “median hourly wage is 14% lower than men’s”, and “in this organisation, women occupy 60% of the highest paid jobs and 76% of the lowest paid jobs.”

There was no discrepancy in bonus pay.

With an employee size of 1,000 to 4,999 employees, the most recent data was released on 31st March 2018.

The organisation was originally required to provide 2019’s data by 30th March 2020, but this deadline was extended “due to Coronavirus (COVID-19)”.

Cllr Clare Coghill, Leader of Waltham Forest Council, said: “The council is fully committed to reducing its gender pay gap and improving outcomes for women. Our gender pay gap strategy, approved by Cabinet in June 2019, was developed with members of our staff and outlines how we will resolve this problem and close the gap.

“The key actions for the first year of the plan include a new internal communications strategy so that new staff have a clearer idea of how they can progress, consistency across the organisation on policies to support staff including flexible working and professional development, and improved development opportunities for our frontline staff. Alongside this work, we will also examine the ethnicity pay gap and possible solutions to address it.

“After the first year we will review the strategy with members of staff to create actions for the second.

“Although women represent 60% of the Council’s highest paid employees, and three out of five of the Council’s Strategic Directors are women, we know there is more work to be done to address this issue.“