Ethnicity pay gap reports no longer mandatory for employers

In October 2018, the Government published a consultation on ethnicity pay gap reporting which would see large employers providing Company figures on the ethnicity pay gap.

Moving forwards to 2022, the Government is now stating that there will no longer be legislation released for employers to provide mandatory reporting of the ethnicity pay gap within their organisations.

There were a few reasons cited for this change, including concerns of additional burden on employers as they’re still coping with the effects of the pandemic, and incomplete data causing difficulties in the interpretation of findings.

Instead, there will be voluntary guidance available from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).

This is expected to be published in Summer 2022 and will help to provide instruction on how to publish pay gaps, and steps that employers can take to remove pay disparities.

There are still many calls to make ethnicity pay gap reporting mandatory.

There are concerns that a voluntary scheme will not drive the necessary change to encourage equality in salary.

The CIPD has said they’ll be looking to work with the Government to assist in providing guidance, and in the hope that they will encourage further adoption of voluntary ethnicity pay gap reporting in organisations.

As of January 2022, the CIPD has already released some guidance for UK employers regarding ethnicity pay reporting.