Gender Pay Gap Report

Name / purpose of document

December 2023

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Gender pay gap report / December 2023

What is gender pay gap reporting?

Mandatory gender pay gap reporting was introduced in 2017 with the aim of narrowing and eventually eliminating the pay differentiale between men and women.

At this time all UK companies with 250 or more employees are required to publish gender pay gap information. This is includes: 

Proportion of males and females in each pay quartile



The mean and median hourly gender pay gap



The mean and median bonus gender pay gap

What does gender pay gap reporting show?

The gender pay gap is an equality measure that shows the difference in average earnings between women and men.

Pay gaps are different from equal pay. Equal pay is providing the same pay irrespective of a protected characteristic for those doing the same or similar work or work that is different but of equal value.

In the UK the current mean gender pay gap among all employees is 14.3%.

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Gender pay gap report / December 2023

This data represents our employed members of staff excluding salaried and equity partners, employed consultants and equivalents.

Gender breakdown by quartile Lower

89%

11%

Lower Mid

87%

13%

Gender Split Upper Mid

54

189

Top

79%

21%

57%

43%

Female

Median

Male

Mean

Excluding secretarial roles

Including secretarial roles

Excluding secretarial roles

Including secretarial roles

Gender pay gap

11.9%

37.8%

15.2%

24.9%

Gender bonus pay gap

0.0%

0.0%

36.3%

45.1%

The proportion of males and females receiving a bonus payment 73.9%

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83.6%

Gender pay gap report / December 2023

%

Understanding the gap There are a number of factors that contribute to our gender pay gap: o o

o

o o

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Nearly a third of our workforce are part-time, only one is male, this contributes to the bonus pay gap.

Like most law firms we have significantly fewer men than women occupying roles in lower quartiles which is the largest contributing factor to our pay gap.

We have more women in non-solicitor roles and as these roles are paid less on average than solicitor roles, this contributes to the median pay gap.

There is a higher percentage of males in our top quartile compared to other quartiles which is where higher bonuses are paid.

Our mean gender pay gap is slightly lower than recent research* of the legal sector which showed a gender pay gap of 25.4%.

Gender pay gap report / December 2023

Action Planning for the Future We have several practices in place to support reducing the gap including: o Our Locate for Your Diary policy to allow people to work more flexibly. o Our Core Hours policy to allow people to work around their personal commitments. o The promotion of flexible working to support our staff and their wellbeing.

Our aim is to create an inclusive culture where people want to work and enjoy working and we remain dedicated to implementing changes to drive improvements, including: o o o o o o o o o

Reviewing and improving our recruitment adverts to highlight the flexible working opportunities at all levels.

Showcase examples where flexible working is successful at a range of levels across the firm.

Implementing anonymised CVs. Introducing mixed-sex interview panels, where possible.

Using a broader range of advertising methods to reach the widest possible candidate pool.

Developing our use of apprenticeship schemes.

Reviewing our family leave offering and actively promoting shared parental leave to our people.

Reviewing our bonus schemes.

Holding diversity, unconscious bias and conscious inclusion training.

I confirm the gender pay gap data contained in this report is accurate.

Paula Bailey

Partner

*https://www.lexisnexis.co.uk/blog/future-of-law/the-gender-pay-gap-in-the-legal-sector-where-do-we-go-from-here howespercival.com

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