The Gender Pay Gap Information Regulations 2017 put a requirement on employers with more than 250 employees to publish differences in pay between men and women. Analysis by the LGA in 2019 across local government employers indicated that there was a mean gender pay gap of 6.1% and a median gender pay gap of 4.0% amongst local government staff. While that is significant, it compared favourably to the economy as a whole, where the mean gap for 2021/22 was 9.7% and the median was 5.5%.

While there is a clear and obvious link between pension and pay equality, the Scheme Advisory Board decided to analyse the gender pensions gap in the Local Government Pension Scheme. This is because we do not expect differences in pay at any one point in time to be a complete explanation of differential pension incomes at retirement. For example, there are likely to be other variables which impact on pension benefit accrual, such as:

• The cumulative effect of lower than expected pay

• Career breaks and their effect on career progression

• Differences in opt out rates and take up of the 50/50 scheme

Research into the extent of the gender pensions gap was undertaken by the Government Actuary’s Department at the Board’s request using data from the 2020 scheme valuation. This has shown that the difference between men and women as to their accrued benefits in the Local Government Pension Scheme is 34.7% for benefits in the reformed CARE scheme and 46.4% for benefits in the legacy final salary scheme (in favour of men). The data also showed that the average pension in payment for a woman was £4,285 while for a man it was £8,466. These initial findings do need to be interpreted with some caution, though. The LGA pay gap analysis excludes all schools staff (and any other staff not directly employed by a Local Authority), while the gender pensions gap analysis includes data held on non-teaching staff working in schools, academies, further education colleges, some higher education institutions and many other non-Local Authority employers who can be employed under different terms and conditions. The Board will now be doing further work to understand the data and investigate causes, as well as considering possible next steps.