Downing Street statement on today’s Civil Service Gender Pay statistics

Downing Street statement on today’s Civil Service Gender Pay statistics.

Key findings:

• The overall gender pay gap for the Civil Service fell from 13.6% in 2016 to 12.7% in 2017. This is significantly lower than the overall UK pay gap of 18.4% and 23.7% seen in the private sector.

• The gender pay gap for the public sector as a whole is now 19.4%, compared to 23.7% in the private sector. 

• The Civil Service is taking a number of steps to continue to improve, including:

• launching guidance on diverse panels to limit the impact of unconscious bias in selection;
• ensuring recruiters for the Civil Service focus harder on attraction and fair selection;
• taking action to improve the diversity of our talent programmes to make us more representative at the most senior grades;
• striving to create a working environment where everyone can be themselves, so they can thrive personally, perform at their best and be fairly rewarded as part of ‘A Brilliant Civil Service’.
• The recently launched Diversity and Inclusion Strategy sets out how the Civil Service will become the most inclusive employer by 2020.

A Number 10 spokesperson said:

“Closing the gender pay gap is good for the economy, good for individuals and good for business, which is why this Government has gone further than ever before in tackling this issue by introducing world-leading legislation for gender pay reporting.

“This will provide unprecedented transparency, generate wider debate and encourage employers to take the action to close the gap and make workplaces across the UK fairer.

“The Civil Service has been leading the way by publishing its gender pay gap figures for a number of years as part of the annual Civil Service statistics, and so we are pleased to see that the Civil Service gender pay gap is narrowing, and remains significantly lower than in the private sector.

“But of course there is still more to do and we need to build on this progress to continue leading by example and improve the gender balance across all departments, agencies and professions.”