THE GENDER pay gap at Ceredigion County Council has grown from last year, new data has shown, with councillors told that recruiting more women to senior roles will improve the situation.

Reports on gender pay and workforce equality for 2022 were presented to councillors at committee meetings in December.

It was highlighted that as of 31 March, by mean average women employed by the council were paid six per cent less than men and the median pay gap left women being paid 7.6 per cent less than men - an increase in the gap from last year of 5.3 per cent and 3.9 per cent respectively - but similar to 2020’s figures.

Councillors heard that the main reason for the gap was lower numbers of women in more senior roles – although there are significantly more women employed over all at 66 per cent compared to 34 per cent men.

It was also noted that the figures did not include teachers or head teachers.

Councillors noted that attempts to recruit from the “widest possible talent pool” would continue, flexible work options to retain staff and ensuring development opportunities will help to narrow the gap.

A report put before members said that “while we are confident that men and women are paid equally for doing equivalent jobs across the council, the main reason for our organisation-wide gender pay gap is an imbalance of male and female colleagues across the organisation.”

“At the moment there are fewer women in senior roles than men, as well as a higher proportion of women relative to men in lower scales,” the council report said.

In a bid to tackle the pay gap, the report said that the council will “ensure that the language in job adverts is gender neutral” and “continue to explore further platforms to promote the Council recruitment profile on social media in order to attract as many candidates as possible and monitor these to evaluate the impact on applicant numbers.”

“We aim to recruit from the widest possible talent pool. We will continue to develop our Careers site in order to attract as many candidates as possible to work for Ceredigion County Council,” the report adds.

Steps have also been put in place to ensure all staff have “development opportunities” to reach senior levels, with revised training being put in place on recruitment, selection, equality and diversity.