Ethnicity Pay Gap 2023
3. Our ethnicity pay gap
The difference between ethnicity pay gap and equal pay
The ethnicity pay gap is a measure of the overall percentage difference in average hourly pay between those who identify from ethnic heritage and those who identify as white British, regardless of the role an individual is in and the work they do. Equal pay is about ensuring all groups are paid equally for doing equal value. For this reason it is possible for an organisation to have a ethnicity pay gap without breaching equal pay provisions.
Our ethnicity pay gap is not as a result of equal pay issues. Our police officers, as servants of the Crown, operate under Police Regulations and a nationally agreed pay structure. Police staff are graded in accordance with a pay structure which is applied equally regardless of protected characteristics.
How do we report our pay gap statistics?
Median pay gap:
Imagine a picture where all our officers and staff from ethnic heritage stood next to each other in one line in order of lowest hourly pay to highest and imagine the same picture where all our white British officers and staff did the same. The median ethnicity pay gap is the difference in pay between the ethnic heritage officer and staff in the middle of their line and the white British officer and staff in the middle of their line.
Mean pay gap:
The other measure is the mean ethnicity pay gap, which shows the difference in average hourly rate of pay between those who identify as being from ethnic heritage and those who identify as white British . This is also affected by the different numbers of individuals from different heritage in different roles.