07 September 2007
The gender pay gap for local government managers increased significantly last year, despite long-standing legislation designed to tackle the scourge of low wages for millions of women, figures have revealed.
Data published by the Chartered Management Institute on September 5 shows that while the gender pay gap is lower across the public sector than in the private, key public employers contributed to an overall rise in income inequalities between the sexes last year.
In the local government sector, senior women's pay increased by an average of 3.9% last year, compared with 6.3% for men: the first time that female pay has increased by a lower margin in more than a decade.
The figures led Jenny Watson, the chair of the Equal Opportunities Commission, to call for renewed efforts to enforce equal pay legislation. 'The Equal Pay Act has been in force for more than 30 years and is now in serious need of modernisation,' Watson warned.
Hundreds of UK town halls face multimillion pound lawsuits unless the issue is addressed, while some local authorities have already been forced to backdate larger settlements for female staff.
The rising pay gap might also have contributed to a higher rate of resignations by women working in local government.
Jo Causon, the CMI's marketing director, said the increasing gap could be partly due to the relatively high proportion of women managers in the public sector. But she added: 'It is clear that the pull of promotion is not being matched by parity in pay.'
Across the public and private sectors, average overall earnings for women lagged £6,076 (12.2%) behind average male earnings last year.
The biggest bastion of inequality was the food and drink sector, where male salaries outstripped those for women by 46%. The most equal sector was in charities, where the gap was just 0.7%.
However, the figures show that women enjoy promotion at a faster rate than men.
PFsep2007
