Diversity
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The results of an ethnicity pay audit by the Greater London Authority shows an average 16 per cent pay gap between white people employed by the GLA Group and those from a BAME background.
The pay audit is among the first on ethnicity and shows similar reasons being put forward for the gap as for the gender pay audits – the under-representation of BAME employees in senior roles.
The pay gap is particularly stark at the Metropolitan Police, the Greater London Authority itself and the two development corporations.
The figures show an ethnic pay gap of 9.8 per cent for Transport for London, 16.7 per cent for the Metropolitan Police Service, 3.5 per cent for the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime, a 0 per cent gap for the London Fire Brigade, a 37.5 per cent gap for the Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation and a 30 per cent gap for the London Legacy Development Corporation.
The Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said he was determined to address pay inequality. He said: “I’m urging all London’s public bodies and businesses to join me in doing what they can to right this injustice and calling on the Government to consider if it is appropriate to legislate to make ethnicity pay audits a legal requirement, as is the case for gender pay reporting.”
He says recruitment is now completely anonymised – most recently removing names from applications in addition to other personal details which have long since been removed including gender and ethnicity. Unconscious bias training is also being rolled out across the organisation and a new Diversity and Inclusion Management Board, led by Head of Paid Service, Jeff Jacobs, has been established. The Greater London Authority is looking to establish a BAME Staff Network to help tackle under-representation within the organisation particularly at senior levels.
Meanwhile a survey of 1,400 workers by business psychologists Pearn Kandola has found 52% said they had witnessed an act of racism at work, but a third had not reported it to their employer.
