Pay gap between Peterborough council’s highest and lowest paid earner reduces

The remuneration for chief executive Gillian Beasley is now 8.89 times the salary of the person on the lowest wage, compared to 11.34 in 2013.

The council said its lowest paid staff have seen an increase in their pay of 27 per cent in eight years, compared to two per cent for Mrs Beasley who did not see her pay increase for four years and who did not accept a national pay award in the past three years.

The chief executive is paid a basic salary of £173,596 a year, while the lowest wage has risen from £15,011 in 2013 to £19,515.

However, the average salary package at the council rose from £33,748 to £35,633 between January 2020 and January 2021.

Moreover, out of 1,247 paid employees, the total salary package of the person in the middle (623rd) is £32,624, an increase of 11.25 per cent since 2018.

The figures rely on using full time equivalent salaries where staff are on part time contracts.

Meanwhile, the pay gap at the council has decreased over the past year, based on average hourly earnings.

Men on average receive £18.65 an hour, compared to £17.70 for women, although nearly three-quarters of the workforce (73.25 per cent) are female.

However, the gap of the middle hourly rate has increased over the past 12 months to 78p an hour.

The council said this was due to an increase in the number of women being employed in roles which receive the lowest salaries.

The authority said its mean and median gender pay gaps are “well below the national public sector average,” adding: “Male employees had longer service with Peterborough City Council than female employees and so were more likely to have reached the top of their (pay) grade.”

The council said salaries are the same for posts which have been evaluated as being of equal worth and that”there are no circumstances within the standard grading structure where men and women in the same grade and with the same length of service are paid different basic salaries”.

It also promised to increase the number of women who receive higher salaries, adding: “The council is continuing to review its recruitment and retention practices to ensure that there is no discriminatory practice within our processes. This remains a priority.

“We will continue to ensure that our pay and reward system is fair and transparent. We will strengthen our employment monitoring and use it to continue to increase the number of females in the upper quartile (for pay).”