GENDER PAY GAP

Date of report: 27th May 2021

This report sets out the gender pay gap statistics for John Smedley Ltd in relation to the reporting year of 2020-2021. Reporting of the data has been extended until October 2021.

Introduction

Under the Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017, John Smedley Ltd is legally required to publish, on an annual basis, specified information relating to their gender pay gap.
The following information has been calculated in accordance with the Regulations and is legally compliant.

The Gender Pay Gap

The gender pay gap is the difference between the average pay of men and women, expressed as a percentage. The gap is calculated across the entire workforce of an organisation.

The gender pay gap has many contributing factors which will differ from organisation to organisation, across sectors and across geographical locations. These factors may or may not be unlawful or discriminatory, guided by society or cultural aspects, or as a result of internal organisational practices.

It is crucial to our understanding of gender pay disparity to recognise that the gender pay gap is different to equal pay. Equal pay legislation allows claims to be raised where there is a discriminatory pay difference between men and women who carry out the same job, jobs rated as equivalent or work of equal value. The existence of a gender pay gap does not automatically give rise to any discrimination or equal pay matters.

Organisational Context

Due to the Covid 19 pandemic affecting the UK from 23rd March, we were in a situation where a large proportion of our team were furloughed. This has affected the reporting figures albeit the overall positive reduction in our Gender Pay Gap continues.
The nature of our business being within the Textile industry means that historically we retain and attract mainly female employees in our sewing departments and mainly male employees within our knitting departments but we continue to try to attract a diverse workforce when undertaking recruitment.

Our ability to compete within the Textile industry is a challenge as many textile companies have chosen to make their products abroad as it has been cheaper to do so. This provides us with the ongoing challenge of recruiting skilled employees who do not exist in our geographical location and means we have to train many of our new recruits from scratch. Attracting people into the industry is also a challenge in the UK.

Our Approach To Pay And Reward

Covid 19 has meant we have not been able to offer an annual pay award so our pay and reward has remained fairly static.

CALCULATIONS

Mean Gender Pay Gap

Based on the mean (average) hourly rate of pay for male and female employees in the relevant pay period, our mean gender pay gap is 11.3% (rounded to one decimal place).

Median Gender Pay Gap

Based on the median (middle) hourly rate of pay for male and female employees in the relevant pay period, our median gender pay gap is 10.8% (rounded to one decimal place).

The figures are skewed as a large proportion of our workforce were on furlough and therefore were not included as 'full pay employees'.

Gender Bonus Gap/Bonus Pay

We did not make any bonus payment and therefore there are no results for this section.

Salary Pay Quartiles

The following table separates our 'full pay' workforce into four equal quartiles based on the salaries that are paid to these employees. These quartiles are then further broken down into the number and proportion, expressed as a percentage, of male and female employees in each quartile. NB the majority of our workforce were on furlough as of the snapshot date.

 

  Lower Number Lower Number % Lower Middle Number Lower Middle Number % Upper Middle Number Upper Middle Number % Upper Number Upper Number %
Male 4 50 3 37.5 6 75 6 66.7
Female 4 50 4 62.5 1 25 3 33.3

Action Plan To Address Gender Pay Disparity

We have already started to reduce the Gender Pay Gap in our Company year on year so are actions are having an effect.
We are committed to reducing, and subsequently closing, any identified gender pay disparity. This commitment, however, is made in line with our understanding that a period of time and exploration of a number of different actions may be needed in order to achieve this aim.

Confirmatory Statement

I confirm that the information set out in this gender pay gap report is accurate and calculated in accordance with the Regulations.

Signed by:

Bryan Jackson Signature

BRYAN JACKSON
CHAIRMAN
For and on behalf of John Smedley Ltd