East Coast Community Healthcare CIC

Gender Pay Gap Report

Snapshot Date: 5 April 2023

Published: April 2024

About East Coast Community Healthcare CIC

East Coast Community Healthcare CIC (ECCH) is a staff owned Social Enterprise, providing community based NHS and social care in Norfolk & Suffolk. ECCH is owned by its employees. Our staff have a stake – and therefore a real say – in how the organisation works. Around 76% of staff are shareholders - well above average for a social enterprise - and we have two Staff Directors, appointed by their shareholder colleagues, who sit on the Board to help shape our business.

ECCH is committed to being an equal opportunities employer and to building equality, diversity and inclusion into everything that it does.

Gender Pay Gap Reporting

Legislation has made it statutory for organisations with 250 or more employees to report annually on their gender pay gap. Government departments are covered by the Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties and Public Authorities) Regulations 2017 which came into force on 31 March 2017. These regulations underpin the Public Sector Equality Duty and require the relevant organisations to publish their gender pay gap data annually by 4 April. This data includes mean and median gender pay gaps; the mean and median gender bonus gaps; the proportion of men and women who received bonuses; and the proportions of male and female employees in each pay quartile.

The gender pay gap shows the difference in the average pay between all men and women in a workforce. If a workforce has a particularly high gender pay gap, this can indicate there may be a number of issues to deal with and the individual calculations may help to identify what those issues are.

The gender pay gap is different to equal pay. Equal pay deals with the pay differences between men and women who carry out the same jobs, similar jobs or work of equal value. It is unlawful to pay people unequally because they are a man or a woman.

East Coast Community Healthcare CIC supports the fair treatment and reward of all staff irrespective of gender.

This report sets out:

• • the reporting requirements for East Coast Community Healthcare CIC;
  • provides additional data where appropriate;
  • provides some analysis to identify the gender pay gap;
  • possible reasons for the gender pay gap; and what we are doing to close the gender pay gap in the organisation.

Definitions and Scope

The gender pay gap is defined as the difference between the mean or median hourly rate of pay that male and female colleagues receive.

The mean pay gap is the difference between average hourly earnings of men and women.  Namely, the hourly gap divided by the average for men equates to the mean gender pay gap.

The median pay gap is the difference between the midpoints in the ranges of hourly earnings of men and women. It takes all salaries in the sample, lines them up in order from lowest to highest, and picks the middle-most salary.

The report is based on rates of pay as at 5 April 2023.  It includes all employees in scope on
5 April 2023.

Gender Pay Gap

The following Gender pay report data is taken as the snapshot date of 5 April 2023 and only includes those staff who were in receipt of their ordinary hourly rate on the snapshot date:

*A positive figure indicates a gender pay gap in favour of males.

Pay Quartiles by Gender

What do we do to ensure equal pay?

As noted earlier in this report, gender pay is different to equal pay. 

Legislation requires that men and women must receive equal pay for:

• • the same or broadly similar work;
  • work rated as equivalent under a job evaluation scheme; or
  • work of equal value.

ECCH is committed to the principle of equal opportunities and equal treatment for all employees, regardless of sex, race, religion or belief, age, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy/maternity, sexual orientation, gender reassignment and 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). 

We deliver equal pay through a number of means but primarily through adopting nationally agreed terms and conditions for our workforce:

• National NHS Agenda for Change Terms and Conditions of Service (AfC).

AfC is negotiated nationally by the NHS Staff Council, led by NHS Employers.  The national NHS Staff Council has overall responsibility for the AfC pay system and has representatives from both employers and trade unions.  AfC provides the framework for pay arrangements which are in place at ECCH. 

Typically, AfC terms and conditions apply to nursing, allied health professionals and administration and clerical staff, which are the majority of the workforce. 

Where appropriate, locally agreed policies may supplement AfC arrangements, such as:

• • Family friendly policies;
  • Evaluating job roles and pay grades as necessary to ensure a fair structure;
  • Starting salaries policy.

• Very Senior Managers (VSMs) and Chairs and Non-Executive Directors (NEDs). 

As a Social Enterprise, ECCH is free to determine its own rates of pay for its VSMs and Chairs and NEDs.  VSMs include Chief Executives, Executive Directors and other senior managers with board level responsibility who report directly to the Chief Executive. Rates of pay for VSM’s are determined via a Remuneration Committee.

The Remuneration Committee (Executive and VSM roles) meets annually. It currently uses the national NHS VSM Pay Guidance as one reference in setting the rates of pay. This system is based on the principles outlined under VSM which determines the rate of pay for the Chief Executive based on the size and type of the organisation, turnover and population.  In accordance with the evolving economic climate and recruitment and retention challenges it has become necessary to consider a range of additional factors in the determination of executive pay.  A comprehensive report of the executive pay landscape is prepared for the Remuneration Committee annually.

An Independent Remuneration Review Group also meets annually. Its purpose is to review Non-Executive Director, Chair and Staff Director remuneration. The system of pay review is different due to these roles holding an ‘officer’ rather than ‘employed’ status. Pay is primarily aligned  by reference to NHS England and Improvement’s recommended pay structure for Chairs and Non-Executive Directors in addition to market driven pay benchmarking (as required.)

The Gender Pay Gap at ECCH – further data

ECCH is confident that its gender pay gap does not stem from paying men and women differently for doing the same or equivalent work. Rather its gender pay gap is the result of the roles in which men and women work within the organisation and the salaries that these roles attract.

It is perhaps helpful to review the staffing profile within ECCH.  Below is a table which reflects the pay bands in operation per assignment (excluding bank staff).  The bands referred to in the table are the AfC pay bands and range from Band 1 (the lowest pay band, closed to new entrants from 1^st December 2018) through to band 9 (the highest pay band).  Personal pay includes the Chair, Non-Executive Directors, Staff Directors, Chief Executive, Executive Directors and other senior managers with Board level responsibility who report directly to the Chief Executive.

Table 1: Gender Pay Gap by Banding

* A minus/negative figure in the column ‘Gender Pay Gap by Pay Band’ indicates a gender pay gap in favour of females. Positive figures indicate a gender pay gap in favour of males.

** This headcount includes staff with more than one post (e.g.where an employee has one or more posts (even at the same banding), both posts will have been counted towards the headcount figure above.

Table 2: Average Hourly Rates Breakdown

The information contained within the table above is sourced from the same data which provided the gender pay gap figures, i.e. the staffing position as at 5 April 2023.

What is the data telling us?

On 5 April 2023, ECCH had 625 eligible staff of which 507 were female and 118 were male. Of the 625 staff, 8 employees have more than one post, meaning there is a total assignment count of 633 eligible posts. The average hourly rate for females is £1.92 lower than males; this difference has decreased from 2022 by £0.69. However, when this is broken down into different pay bands, it is noted that for all bands except Band 2, Band 8b and Personal Pay the pay gap is in favour of
women.    

In Band 2 there is a slight pay gap in favour of men and this is primarily due to length of service within the band and shift patterns. This is similar for Band 8b where there is a £2.18 difference between hourly pay. Whilst there 2 fewer males than females the difference in pay is largely attributable to a difference in length of service within the band, with more females being on the bottom step points of the band.

Within Personal Pay there is a much higher pay gap, with a gap of £16.94 per hour.

The average hourly rate pay gap for those in receipt of Personal Pay has decreased from 2022 where the gender pay gap was £19.08 per average hourly rate; on the 2023 snapshot date the gender pay gap was £16.94 per average hourly rate, i.e. an decrease of £2.14 per hour.

The average hourly rate for females within personal pay was £39.64 whilst the average hourly rate for males was £56.58.

Splitting personal pay into 4 quartiles, there are no females in the upper quartile, with an even split between quartiles 2 and 3, and more females in quartile 1. 

Those in the lowest quartile/quartile 1,include Staff Directors where the hourly pay relates to the honorary fee payment which is made in
addition to the hourly rate paid in their substantive role for the time worked in this Board role (and the two hourly rates have not been combined).

Table 3: Personal Pay Quartiles

50% of the males in the Personal Pay bracket sit in quartile 4, with an average hourly rate of £65.57 and it is these roles that have increased the overall average hourly rate within Personal Pay for males.

Compared with last year, the gender pay gap mean has decreased from 14.13% to 11.68%.

Our median pay gap has had an increase from 3.83% to 5.96%. Looking further into the data we can see that our pay gap is heavily influenced by the salaries of those at the top end of the scales.

Removing the hourly rates for all those within the Personal Pay bracket would reduce our gender pay gap to -0.35% and reduce our median pay gap to 1.74%.

We undertake a fair and consistent approach to all recruitment within the organisation, which includes those roles that attract personal pay, to ensure the individual recruited has the required skills, knowledge and experience and is the best fit for the role and our organisation, free from bias on the grounds of factors such as gender, age, disability or race that are not relevant to the persons ability to do the job.

ECCH’s remuneration committee receives an annual report of the executive pay landscape and collates research from a range of relevant, approved pay sources, including the Senior Salaries Pay Review Body, NHS VSM pay framework and sources with recognised expertise in the field of executive pay. Pay is determined consistently across roles and any pay disparites are highlighted for the Committee’s consideration.

The AfC pay structure enables staff to receive incremental points within the pay band based on years’ service in the role until they reach the top of the pay band. This is not gender defined and both male and female staff have equal opportunity to reach the top of the pay band. 

ECCH continue to monitor the starting salaries of new employees in line with our Starting Salaries Policy and Agenda for Change Terms and Conditions to ensure there is no gender bias and new starters are placed on the appropriate salary based on their experience and the role that they have been recruited into.

Download a copy of the report here