The gender pay gap at Ceredigion County Council has grown since 2019, a report has found, but the authority insists it is “confident men and women are paid equally for doing equivalent jobs”.

A report put before cabinet members last week showed that the mean pay gap between men and women at the authority as of March this year was 5.3 per cent, a rise of 2.4 per cent on the 2019 figure, but a reduction from the 7.6 per cent recorded last year.

The median pay gap - now standing at 3.9 per cent - also rose from 2019 but slightly dropped from last year.

The mean pay gap is the difference between average hourly earnings of men and women, with the median pay gap the difference between the midpoints in the ranges of hourly earnings of men and women.

The Gender Pay Report 2021 report presented to members on 5 October, showed that Ceredigion County Council employed 2,003 staff as of March, consisting of 1,327 women - 66 per cent of the workforce, and 676 men.

More than 800 of the women working for the council earn between £15,000 and £25,000, data shows.

Of the council’s 19 chief officers - the council’s highest paid position earning between £41,000 and £101,000 a year - 10 are female.

The data also shows more women are in casual and fixed term employment than men, with fewer working in permanent roles.

“While we are confident that men and women are paid equally for doing equivalent jobs across the council,” the report said, “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 added.

Ceredigion County Council, along with all listed public authorities in Wales, is required to carry out gender pay reporting and publish employment information on an annual basis.

The report only includes centrally employed staff of Ceredigion council and does not include teachers and support staff directly employed by school governing bodies.