Over 1,200 UK-based companies with 250 or more employees – including some of the UK’s biggest names in health and fitness, fast food, health food retail, air travel and more – have submitted non-compliant gender pay gap reports.

The two most commonly disregarded or misinterpreted rules are the confirmation statement, which must be given and signed by a company director (or senior partner in a law firm) and a failure to maintain published reports on the organisation’s website for a minimum of three years. Sectors with the highest non-compliance rates are currently accommodation and food services, manufacturing, and human health and social work.

Anthony Horrigan, CEO at pay gap specialist Spktral, said:

“Given the board-level importance of increasing diverse talent within all organisations, it is disappointing how many reports are signed by very junior employees, or in some cases, by an external company. This year’s submissions show that 16% of companies have failed to have their reports signed by the correct person. The question all stakeholders should be asking is: why is this straightforward rule so difficult for companies to get right?”

Since changes to the Equality Act came into force in April 2017, companies with more than 250 employees have been legally required to report their gender pay gap figures at the end of each financial year. Organisations must also reveal the proportion of men and women who receive financial bonuses.

As well as non-compliance, over one-third of companies failed to provide a URL to their organisation’s 2021 Gender Pay Gap report. The legislation requires companies to display Gender Pay Gap reports on their websites for a minimum of three years from the date of publication. While 2019’s report was suspended, all in-scope companies should have their 2020 and 2021 reports available on their website today. There is a difference between a difficult to find report and a non-compliant rule breach when a specific report does not exist or has been overwritten by the most recent one.

Many organisations, including a leading health and fitness organisation and a popular airline, have been non-compliant over multiple years.

Horrigan added:

“The quantum of non-compliant companies has risen since the pandemic. It seems counterintuitive to me that so many companies are comfortable with demonstrating a lack of regard for their most valuable assets. With a non-compliance rate of over 16%, employees, shareholders and prospective employees should ask: If these organisations can’t get the basic compliance checks right, what else has been mis-read or mis-calculated? While simply reporting will not increase representation, the process will lead the way for more involved analysis and transparent communication. The EHRC should be enforcing the regulations with real consequences and most importantly – education.”

Fiona Hathorn, founder and CEO of Women On Boards and advisory board member at Spktral, added:

“The majority of organisations do want to make progress, however, many senior leadership teams are unaware of these mistakes because they have made assertions that the employees, business partners or external service providers tasked with this process have completed it correctly. Ultimately, the buck stops with executive teams, and they should be the ones to lead on the task, or take the time to nominate an accountable officer to review and sign-off the process.”

The crux of the gender pay gap is the lack of female representation throughout the pay range of an organisation. Non-compliance is a very clear signal that a company may not have a robust process in place or that the intent of senior leadership is not filtering down to the team tasked with carrying out this legislated work.

Horrigan concluded:

“The regulations state that The Secretary of State should be reviewing the legislation, its objectives, and publish the report with recommendations at intervals not exceeding five years. The current regulations came into force on 6 April 2017, meaning the first report is due to be issued before 6 April 2022 in order for the Cabinet Office to be compliant with their own legislation.”