Gender pay gap reporting

As an employer with more than 250 staff, we are required by law to publish gender pay gap figures for the last three reporting years on our website.

We are required to publish the information for 31 March 2024 by 31 March 2025.

Gender pay gap 31 March 2023

Hourly rate

Women's mean hourly rate is 5.9% lower.

Women's median hourly rate is 4.5% lower.

Pay quartiles

How many men and women are in each quarter of the employer's payroll.

Bonus pay

Bonus includes retention payments, merit pay, and long service awards.

Women's mean bonus pay is 75.6% lower.*

Women's median bonus pay is 57.1% lower.

* Caused in Merton by a few mainly male bailiffs amongst a small data set earning high levels of bonus.

7.3% of men received bonus pay.**

7.7% of women received bonus pay.**

** Noting bonus includes retention payments, merit pay, and long service awards.

Gender pay gap 31 March 2022

Hourly rate

Women's mean hourly rate is 7.5% lower.

Women's median hourly rate is 4.5% lower.

Pay quartiles

How many men and women are in each quarter of the employer's payroll.

Bonus pay

Bonus includes retention payments, merit pay, and long service awards.

Women's mean bonus pay is 68.3% lower.*

Women's median bonus pay is 54.6% higher.

* Caused in Merton by a few mainly male bailiffs amongst a small data set earning high levels of bonus

3.5% of men received bonus pay

1.6% of women received bonus pay

Gender pay gap 31 March 2021

Hourly rate

Women's mean hourly rate is 7.1% lower.

Women's median hourly rate is 5.9% lower.

Pay quartiles

How many men and women are in each quarter of the employer's payroll.

Bonus pay

Bonus includes retention payments, merit pay, and long service awards.

Women's mean bonus pay is 83.1% lower.*

Women's median bonus pay is 150.0% higher.

* Caused in Merton by a few mainly male bailiffs amongst a small data set earning high levels of bonus

9.7% of men received bonus pay

7.0% of women received bonus pay

About the data

This is a summary of the requirements to assist with understanding the information we have published.

We are required to publish the overall gender pay gap based on all "normal" pay which for Merton will include basic pay, permanent allowances, London Weighting (where applicable) and payments for maintenance/provision of a vehicle (the Essential Car User Lump Sum allowance). Variable payments such as overtime are excluded.

The snapshot date each year is 31 March and the overall pay gap calculations are based on pay received in the pay period in which it falls.

We are required to publish statistics as follows:

Hourly rate

Firstly, the payments in March are equated to an hourly rate, and the difference ( as a percentage) between male and female mean and median hourly rates for the organisation must be published.

Pay quartiles

Secondly, all the pay records are ranked from highest hourly rate to lowest hourly rate. We are then required to split this list into 4 equal parts, and then to work out how many males and how many females are in each of these 4 quartiles and show these as a percentage. The naming of the quartiles is that which the government use on the website where the information is published.

Bonus

A separate calculation is then made for "bonus", which has a broad definition and includes items such as retention payments, merit payments and long service awards. This calculation takes into account all payments made in the 12 months up to the snapshot date (31 March).

Average and Median bonus payments made to males and females are calculated. We are then required to show the difference (as a percentage) between male and female mean and median bonus pay for the year.

A second calculation is then made to show the proportion of males and female employees (as a percentage) who received such a bonus payment.