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CAIRNGORMS NATIONAL PARK AUTHORITY
STAFFING AND RECRUITMENT COMMITTEE
FOR DISCUSSION

Title: 		EQUAL PAY AUDIT

Prepared by: 	Kate Christie, HR Manager
		David Cameron, Corporate Services Director

Purpose

This paper is to give the Staffing & Recruitment Committee an insight into initial findings of
an equal pay audit conducted on CNPA salaries.

Recommendation

The Committee is requested to:

Consider the outcome of the equal pay audit undertaken on CNPA salaries;
Note that, at this stage, the results indicate that any inequality in male and female pay is in
line with national demographic and socio-economic trends and as such there do not appear
to be any organisationally specific issues to be addressed in equal pay;
Note that some action may be possible to improve the potential to recruit more females
into senior roles and this will be considered as part of ongoing HR policy development.

Executive Summary

An equal pay audit is designed to assess pay levels across the organisation in terms of
gender equality. It should scrutinise all aspects of pay including overtime opportunities,
bonus payments, profiles of the different grades across the organisation, and incremental
progression in order to highlight any areas where direct or indirect discrimination may be
impacting on pay equality. CNPA committed to conducting an equal pay audit as part of its
gender equality scheme, because, although the organisation is below the 150 staff threshold
set out in the legislation, it is good practice to assess pay for gender equality on an ongoing
basis.

Equal Pay Audit – April 2010

1. This equal pay audit was conducted in April 2010 using the salary levels for staff
during 2009 - 2010. Overtime is paid only in exceptional circumstances and makes
up a small element of the paybill, and so has not been considered in this audit. Only
three members of staff have been paid overtime on more than one occasion in the
past year and these were one male and two female members of staff, so it would
appear that there is no particular inequality in access to overtime.

2. Analysis of salary levels within the organisation can be used in conjunction with
recruitment and promotion statistics to give a broader picture of any disparities
within pay and promotion levels across the organisation. CNPA has a robust job
evaluation system which should eliminate gender discrimination in the grading of
different jobs, however this does not entirely eliminate all the potential causes of pay
inequality, and it is important that our processes are scrutinised to ensure that
inequalities are not allowed to develop inadvertently. There may be sociodemographic
reasons behind differences in pay or numbers of male or female staff at
different grades within the organisation, but it is not sufficient to assume that this is
the case.

The Results of the Audit

3. Across the organisation as a whole, there are slightly more women than men
employed by CNPA (37 women and 27 men). The average salary across the
organisation is £31,654, with the average male salary being £36,168 and the average
female salary being £28,360. This makes the average female salary 10.4% lower than
the average across the organisation, and 21.5% lower than the average male salary.
This is a small improvement on the 2007 figures, when the average female salary was
22.5% lower than the average male salary.

Whole organisation

Whole organisation comparator 2007/2010

4. The differentials between average salaries for men and women at CNPA closely
reflect the national trend. Evidence from the CNPA equal pay audit suggests
therefore that the organisation is affected by prevalent demographic trends rather
than particular organisational factors. On average women in Scotland working full
time are paid 14% less per hour than men working full time, and those working part
time earn 35% less per hour than men working full time. Within CNPA these figures
compare as follows: The average full time female salary is 20% lower than the
average male full time salary (compared to 19.8% lower in 2007). The average part
time female salary is 28.7% lower than the average male part time salary (compared
to 15.6% lower on 2007). This is largely due to the fact that there are few part time
opportunities at the higher paid grades within the organisation, and currently all but
one of our part time and job share posts are within bands 3 – 6, with the one part
time post at the higher paid Band 2 being for a male member of staff. Interestingly,
70% of the organisation’s female staff are full time, in comparison with 92 % of the
organisations’ male staff who are full time.

5. CNPA jobs are evaluated to determine which band they should be placed in, and
most staff start at the bottom of the band, progressing by annual increments to the
top of the scale. The potential for gender inequality is thus reduced by the fact that
jobs are objectively evaluated and salaries allocated according to the job content
rather than the person. There is still potential for inequality within evaluation
systems, such as the weighting given to particular types of work – for example caring
tasks have often attracted a lower weighting than manual labour in the past, which
indirectly favours more men than women. The CNPA evaluation system has been
designed to avoid this type of discrimination.

The length of service required to reach the top of the salary scale has in some
instances been found to discriminate against women, who traditionally have more
breaks in their career and therefore take longer to reach the top of the salary point.
Whilst this has not been found to be a problem at CNPA currently, this is an area
which should be monitored closely over the coming years.

6. The CEO’s salary has been included in the band 1 average. As this is the highest paid
officer in the organisation (and only female officer in band 1), including the CEO in
band 1 misrepresents the disparity between male and female pay in the band.
Outwith band 1, the Equal Pay Audit found that there was no obvious difference in
salaries between male and female staff within each band. However, bands 4, 5 & 6
(the lower paid bands within the organisation) were entirely occupied by female
members of staff. The management team has a ratio of 1:4 females to male, with
four male Heads of Group and a female CEO.

7. An analysis of the salary levels by Group across the organisation showed that in all
groups the average female salary was lower than the average male salary. Much of
this difference appears to be due to the higher levels of female staff at admin or
support officer levels within the groups, combined with slightly more males than
females at the higher paid bands 1 & 2 across the organisation.

Group average
Group Gender

8. Conclusions from the Audit
The salary differentials across the organisation are broadly in line with the national
Scottish statistics published by the Equal Opportunities Commission Scotland in
2007. Where inequalities in salary levels exist it seems to be linked mostly to
demographic factors rather than inherent inequalities within CNPA job evaluation or
access to additional pay.

9. CNPA has a number of policies designed to ensure that male and female members of
staff have equal access to career progression. Male and female staff are given
support in managing childcare commitments and other work life balance issues to
enable them to work effectively at any level of the organisation. We have not
refused any request so far for flexible working, and have a range of part time, jobshare
and ad-hoc working from home arrangements which have been accessed
equally by men and women across the organisation.

10. Recruitment statistics show that of a total of 121 applicants in 2008 there were 59
male applicants and 62 female, or 49% of applicants were male and 51% female. Of
those appointed, 42% were male and 58% female. Of a total of 129 applicants in 2009
there were 79 male applicants and 50 female, or 61% of applicants were male and
39% female. Of those appointed, 20% were male and 80% female. These statistics do
not indicate any gender bias. Nevertheless, working harder to achieve an even
balance of applicants for posts at all grades across the organisation, and continuing to
effectively manage career progression within the organisation may be areas where
we could seek to reduce the gender pay gap further within our organisation in the
future. This may be done by encouraging flexible working practices, and advertising
when recruiting that we have family friendly policies on offer.

Kate Christie
April 2010