Reporting on Gender Pay
Latest Gender Pay Gap report shows significant improvement at Royal Voluntary Service
In 2017 the UK Government introduced new reporting regulations under the Equality Act 2010 requiring companies with >250 employees to disclose their gender pay gap annually. This report outlines the results for 2023 In line with legislative requirements. It sets out data for the reporting period 6 April 2022– 5 April 2023, based on the snapshot date of 5 April 2023. The gender pay gap is the difference in the average hourly rate of pay between women and men in an organisation, expressed as a percentage of average male earnings.
A gender pay gap is indicative of sex inequity and can result from several factors including differences in the occupations and types of roles carried out by women and men, level of seniority, and engagement in part time work. The gender pay gap does not compare salaries earned by men and women in the same or like-for-like roles and is not a measure of pay inequity or equal pay. It is solely the difference in average gross hourly earnings between the sexes. At Royal Voluntary Service staff are paid equally for the same or equivalent work, and pay is determined through an objective ‘job evaluation’ scheme.
Who make up the Royal Voluntary Service workforce?
In April 2023 Royal Voluntary Service employed 611 reportable colleagues, broken down as follows:
466 (76%) - Female collegues (536/76% April 2022)
145 (24%) - Female collegues (168/24% April 2022)
Headcount has reduced over the period; however, the proportion of female and male colleagues is unchanged.
Median Gender Pay Gap
The median Gender Pay Gap has decreased from 8.12% in April 2022 to 1.17% in April 2023
The median gender pay gap is the difference in pay between the middle-ranking female employee and the middle-ranking male employee. We are pleased that the median Gender Pay Gap at Royal Voluntary Service has decreased significantly from 8.12% in 2022 to 1.17% in 2023.
The median gap is less impacted by outlier numbers than the mean as it compares the ‘middle’ pay point for a woman and a man, if all pay for both were ranked from low to high. The median pay gap is considered more representative than the mean pay gap. The Royal Voluntary Service median pay gap compares favourably with the national median gender pay gap among all UK employees, which was 14.9% in 2022 (Office of National Statistics). When comparing median hourly wages, Royal Voluntary Service employees who are women earn 99p for every £1 that Royal Voluntary Service employees who are men earn.
Mean Gender Pay Gap
The mean Gender Pay Gap has decreased from 18.46% in April 2022 to 16.64% in April 2023
The mean GPG is the difference between the average amount earned by female employees and the average amount earned by male employees per hour. The mean GPG has also decreased from 18.46% in 2022 to 16.64% in 2023. This suggests that, on average, the Charity pays women 16.64% less than men, even though the Charity employs significantly more women. The gap is largely attributable to a greater proportion of women in lower paid roles, compared with the proportion of men in higher paid roles, particularly at the upper quartile. There are also more women working in part-time roles.
Implementing the pay & grading review has positively impacted the mean and median Gender Pay Gaps
Gender Pay Gap movement since the 2023 gender pay gap report
The positive reduction in both the mean and median gender pay gaps since April 2022 is largely attributable to a recent Pay and Grading Review completed in 2022 and implemented in 2023. Key elements of the Review have had a positive impact:
- Pushing the pay of the Charity’s lowest paid colleagues above the National Minimum Wage, and taking further steps towards paying the Real Living Wage which is the charity’s clear goal.
- The combined impact of these changes has disproportionately benefited female employees, thus pushing up the mean and median pay of female colleagues.
Pay quartiles
The gender pay gap at Royal Voluntary Service is influenced by a couple of key issues. As with many charities, Royal Voluntary Service’s staff are predominantly women. We have three times as many female employees as men. Analysis reveals that when employees are divided into 4 groups based on pay (‘pay quartiles’), female employees outnumber male in all 4 quartiles.
However, the pay quartile with the highest proportion of men is the upper quartile (36% men and 64% women). Further, the mean average pay for women and men is identical for the lower quartiles, but men earn, on average, £2.69 more than women in the upper quartile.
The table below shows how the proportion of male and female colleagues across the 4 pay quartiles
has shifted over the last 3 years. As shown, there is little change in the composition of men to women;
but the proportion of women in the lowest quartile has reduced from 82% in 2021 to 78% in 2023.
| Quartile |
Male (2023) |
Female |
Male (2022) |
Female (2022) |
Male (2021) |
Female (2021) |
| Upper | 64% | 36% | 64% | 36% | 63% | 37% |
| Upper middle | 81% | 19% | 76% | 24% | 79% | 21% |
| Lower middle | 81% | 19% | 85% | 15% | 82% | 18% |
| Lower | 78% | 22% | 79% | 21% | 82% | 18% |
Although subtle, the changes in the proportion of male and female colleagues across the four pay
quartiles over the last 3 years has impacted the gender pay gap over the period.
Charlotte Lambkin
Chair People and Remuneration Committee
Trustee and Director
I confirm that our data has been calculated according to the requirements of the Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017.