Acas gender pay gap report 2024

The current requirement for gender pay gap reporting is that we report in a binary way rather than including non-binary or other identities.

The figures show:

• 60% of our workforce are women, a 1 percentage point increase from 59% in 2023 and 2022
• 57% of our senior civil servants are women

During 2023 to 2024, the ratio of women to men employed by Acas was 1:0.7 (2022 to 2023, 1:0.7). At executive board level, this ratio was 1:0.7 (2022 to 2023, 1:0.7).

The figures show:

• our mean hourly pay gap is 3.5%
• our median hourly pay gap is 0.7%

In the financial year 2023 to 2024, overall headcount remained at 1,011. However, there were changes in the workforce resulting in minimal fluctuation from 2023 to 2024. These show an improved mean pay gap of 3.5%, down from 5.7% in 2022 and 2023, and a 0.1% increase in our median pay gap to 0.7%, from 0.6% in 2022 and 2023 and about 6% down in the last 2 years.

The majority of starters and leavers continue to be within our lower grades (grades 9 and 10), with a relatively equal proportion of men being recruited at the lower end of the scale. There has been an increased proportion of women recruited at our senior grades (6 and 7) and a higher proportion of leavers who are men, which may have assisted in reducing the mean.

In 2022 to 2023 all eligible employees received a bonus due to a decision to split the reward and recognition pot equally amongst all staff. This explains the steep change in the proportion of people receiving bonuses. The figure is not 100%, as some staff were ineligible to receive this payment in 2023 to 2024.

The figures show:

• 89.4% of women were awarded a bonus
• 91.5% of men were awarded a bonus
• the mean bonus pay gap is 10.8%
• the median bonus pay gap is 0%

The table below shows the proportion of women and men in each pay quartile for Acas. It shows that there is a higher proportion of women in all quartiles and more women in the organisation overall.

The Acas Senior Leadership team is committed to fair pay irrespective of gender.

We will continue to build on actions and initiatives aimed at eradicating the gender pay gap, including:

• adopting a flexibility by default principle and adhering to the new flexible working guidelines
• supporting women returning to work through shared parental leave, job sharing, compressed hours, part-time, remote working (including working from home) and term-time only opportunities – plus, encouraging men to also take advantage of flexible working arrangements
• continuing to monitor pay to identify pay differences and take targeted action where appropriate, within Civil Service pay controls
• taking a more proactive approach towards monitoring our bonus pay in the future – this includes reviewing our recognition programme and making sure full management information (MI) data is collected to ensure fairness of recognition awards across all grades and genders
• continuing our approach to anonymise the job application process to reduce the potential for bias and making sure that all panel members have undergone recruitment training which includes ensuring diversity and success profiles
• having a 'diverse by default' approach towards recruitment, for example, by having recruitment panels which are diverse in terms of gender
• helping women progress in their careers through a clear conversation approach towards performance development, which encourages line managers to have an open and ongoing dialogue with staff on career development and progression, supported by a new digital system providing greater fairness and consistency

Mean (average) gender pay gap

• The mean hourly rate is the average hourly wage across the entire organisation.
• The mean gender pay gap measures the difference between the women's mean hourly wage and the men's mean hourly wage.

Median gender pay gap

• The median hourly rate is calculated by ranking all employees from the highest paid to the lowest paid, and taking the hourly wage of the person in the middle.
• The median gender pay gap is the difference between the women's median hourly wage (the middle paid woman) and the men's median hourly wage (the middle paid man).