Gender Pay Gap Report 2020/2021

Background

• The Government requires all organisations with over 250 staff to calculate and publish the difference in average pay between all men and women in the organisation.

• HRP’s results can be found below. – these calculations show a snapshot of the average organisational position as of 5th April 2021.

• Where relevant, comparisons have been made to the results that were published for the 2019-20 year.

Gender Pay Reporting Results

HRP’s results are as follows, with the 2019-20 results shown in brackets:

• Mean hourly gender pay gap = 3.46% lower for women (6.53% in 2019-20)
• Median hourly gender pay gap = 0.32% lower for women (7.15% in 2019-20)

• Quartiles:

Upper Quartile: 43% (42%) men, 57% (58%) women
Upper Mid Quartile: 48% (43%) men, 52% (57%) women
Lower Mid Quartile: 47% (43%) men, 53% (57%)
Lower Quartile: 41% (32%) men, 59% (68%) women

Bonus Pay Data Reporting Results

• Mean bonus gender pay gap = 40.5% (17.19% in 2019-20)
• Median bonus gender pay gap = 33.3% (0.9% in 2019-20)
• Proportion of males and females receiving a bonus payment = 2.3% of males and 1.3% of females (73% male and 65% female in 2019-20)

Analysis of Data

Here is some further context to help you understand these results.

1.     Impact of Coronavirus

• When the pandemic hit in 2020, we lost almost 90% of our income and had to make difficult choices to ensure our survival. Given the disastrous financial situation that we found ourselves in, we needed to reduce many of our costs including our payroll bill. This, unfortunately, was achieved through a restructure process which resulted in reductions in staff benefits and allowances previously received, as well as redundancies (most of which were voluntary and not compulsory). These were very difficult but necessary decisions we had to make.

2.    Use of the CJRS ‘furlough’ scheme

• Government-imposed restrictions within our sector (as of the snapshot date of 5th April 2021) meant that we were unable to re-open our palaces, and could only welcome visitors to the gardens of Hampton Court Palace and Hillsborough Castle. Coupled with severely reduced visitor numbers and no other sources of income, we had very little work to offer most of our staff and we became heavily reliant on CJRS ‘furlough’ scheme funds to enable the organisation to survive. Staff on furlough continued to receive their full normal pay in April 2021, as it was important to HRP that they were not treated less favourably than colleagues who had work available for them.

3.    Proportion of males versus females

• The proportion of males versus females in each of the four quarters has improved since the previous survey. For example, our lowest paid staff in 2019/20 consisted of 32% male and 68% female, whereas the 2020/21 results are 41% and 59% respectively.
• The Executive team has reduced to 3 female and 5 male Directors (compared to 4 females and 5 males in 2019/20), however, this has not significantly impacted on the gender pay gap results.

4.   Allowances

• The roles that attract allowances are still found in departments with predominately male staff, such as security functions, IS, maintenance, etc.
• The gender pay gap between males and females has considerably reduced as a result of the changes that were made as part of the 2020 restructure (i.e., some of the more significant reductions in allowances were made in teams where there is a higher proportion of males).

5.    Length of service

• Length of service affects the hourly pay gap as it is common practice for new joiners to start at the bottom of the spine point of their pay range. There were only 8 individuals (87% female and 13% male) who joined HRP during the reporting year, compared to 177 individuals (68% female and 32% male) the previous reporting year. All 4 new starters whose hourly rate falls within the upper quartile pay range were females.

6.    HRP bonus

• There was no bonus payable in the 2020-21 year due to the financial impact of the pandemic on the organisation.
• There were, however, a small number of long service awards paid to individuals who reached milestone work anniversaries within the first few months of the reporting period. Once the gravity and longevity of the impact of Coronavirus became clearer, all long service monetary awards were subsequently stopped for any other staff who would have otherwise become eligible for them later during the year. The bonus gap data should therefore be treated with caution as it is representative of a very small sample of staff, and is dependent on which milestone anniversary was reached as well as being pro rata to contractual hours.
• HRP have also moved away from having an annual (individual) performance-related bonus, towards one that is linked to meeting organisation-wide targets and objectives. This will potentially mean less of a gap in any future bonuses paid.

Actions

We will continue to:

• Take action to further support and promote female talent and succession within the organisation, especially in senior roles.
• Promote gender diversity in roles which have traditionally been perceived as being more ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’ (i.e., security/warding/ Yeoman Warder roles which are generally dominated by men, and seasonal/casual roles which are generally dominated by women).
• Encourage managers to continue offering more senior positions on a part‐time or flexible basis, where this can be accommodated.
• Develop a more robust pay and reward strategy, which will include a review of our current pay structures and allowances, as well as further refinement of our new organisation-wide bonus scheme.

In addition to the above, going forward we will start to monitor and assess if there are any pay or bonus gaps for staff with other protected characteristics, such as ethnicity. With the support of our newly created internal Inclusivity Network, we will develop targeted action plans to promote an increase in diversity in recruitment and succession of underrepresented groups.