Gender pay gap report

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. We pay spot salaries and both men and women carrying out the same role are paid the same salary and roles are independently market tested. The gender pay gap shows the difference in the average pay between all men and all women in the workforce.

As Grand Union Housing Group employs more than 250 people, we are required by law to publish an annual gender pay gap report showing the difference in average woman’s earnings compared to the average man’s earnings.

It is important that we continue to address any issues that drive a gender pay gap. In line with our desire to increase the number of women in property and property management roles, in the last year we have seen two new heads of service roles in property that have been filled by women, and one in finance. This progress has impacted positively on our gender pay gap.

Snapshot of 5 April 2023

Gender pay gap	2023 %	2022 %	2023 %
Mean	-1.53	1.16	3.10
Median	-4.72	-4.12	-4.74

This means that for every £10 the average man earns, the average woman takes home £10.15 (this was £9.88 in the last report).

For the first time, this report shows that on average women are paid 1.53% more than men at Grand Union. However there is a caveat to this year’s outcome, as approximately 60 colleagues (virtually all male) did not receive an increase at our 1 April 2023 pay review date due to an industrial dispute over pay.

If the proposed increases had been applied, the mean figure would have been nearer a zero pay gap. Once increases are awarded to this group, they will have an impact on next year’s report. The median figure has remained similar to the last two years. The median is the man or woman who is in the middle of a list of hourly pay for all colleagues, ordered from highest to lowest paid, whereas the mean is the average.

Pay quartile percentages by gender – 5 April 2023

With regard to the workforce, the outturn is the same as last year, with women representing 55%. Our Executive Management team and Directors are made up of 55% women and 45% men.

The pay quartiles by gender table below shows that women continue to be underrepresented in the upper quartile, however, the percentage of women in this category increased by 5.7% this year. This increase is down to a number of factors, including more women being recruited into property management roles, a new female director, a return from maternity leave and salary pressures on some roles mostly filled by women.

The most significant decrease in the number of women was in the lower quartile figure, with a 5.3% reduction. This may be down to outsourcing a cleaning contract and attracting more men into lower quartile roles such as apprenticeships and customer contact roles.

Comparison with other organisations

The national gender pay gap in April 2022, as reported provisionally by the Office for National Statistics in October 2022, was 8.3% for full-time employees and 14.9% among all employees. This gap has been declining slowly over time and has fallen by approximately a quarter over the last decade.

Progress against actions to close the gap

We are really pleased to see improvement in the mean gender pay gap so that it is now slightly in favour of women. We need to continue to support and encourage women into management and other higher paying functions where males traditionally dominate.