Upcoming Events :
Housing Seminar: Partnerships with the Public Sector – Avoiding the pitfalls
Thu 31 May 2012
Minerva House, 5 Montague Close, London, SE1 9BB
Most firms exempt from equality legislation
Tue 15 Dec 2009
As many as 97 per cent of employers may be exempt from changes in the Equality Bill designed to reduce the pay gap between men and women.
The government has said that only firms with more than 500 employees will be required to carry out and submit pay audits, a move welcomed by organisations representing small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
Stephen Alambritis, head of public affairs at the Federation of Small Businesses, pointed out that from his perspective it is mostly large City firms that are guilty of paying women less in comparison to men.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission - which had been concerned that pay audits would be costly and laborious - also supported the decision, saying that expecting SMEs to carry them out would have been impractical.
According to the Fawcett Society, 96 per cent of executive directors at the UK's top 100 companies are men.
This might be seen as a surprising development, as employers with (say) 450 employees would hardly be seen as small, but in terms of actually making the legislation work in practice, it makes sense to restrict the obligation to produce audits to very large employers with the necessary capacity and resources to carry it out.
