BBC accused of breaking the law over gender pay

THE BBC is breaching the Equality Act by failing to ensure men and women are paid equally, MPS have claimed.

Female staff are being subjected to an “invidious culture” of discrimination, says a report on BBC pay equality by the House of Commons digital, culture, media and sport committee.

Pulling no punches, the committee called the BBC a “disgrace” for allegedly “coercing” staff to take on work with no rights to sick pay, maternity leave, pensions or other benefits.

Even its recent reforms had “serious shortcomings”, according to the report, which is published today. However, the BBC said the committee’s findings were “already out of date”.

Damian Collins, who chairs the committee, said: “The BBC acts as a beacon in public life. As an employer, it has an even higher level of duty than others to advance equality of opportunity – but this it has failed to do. The BBC must take urgent action now if it’s to restore its reputation on equal pay.”

MPS said the BBC was “failing to live up to its duty under the [2010] Equality Act to advance equal opportunity for women”. The Act says men and women must be paid the same for doing the same work or work of equal value. It also imposes a higher level of duty on the BBC as a public-sector employer.

The committee report called on the BBC to be more transparent over gender pay. At present, it only publishes the salaries and gender breakdown for people earning £150,000 or more.

MPS said staff “at all levels” should be able to see the gender breakdown in each pay grade so “women can compare their salaries to those of their male colleagues doing equal work”.

Jo Stevens, a Labour MP who sits on the committee, said: “You can do it by job title, or you could do it by salary bands – as the BBC already does for its high earners.

“In an organisation the size of the BBC, it is perfectly possible to do that. And lots of organisations do.”

The requirement to publish salaries above £150,000 should also be extended to programmes made by independent companies, including Strictly Come Dancing and Question Time, MPS said, adding: “It makes little sense to say that the salaries of the presenters of long-running shows like Strictly Come Dancing should be excluded from publication just because they are now made by independent production companies.”

The MPS also recommended that the BBC should compensate those employees who were “coerced” into being paid through personal service companies and who now face high tax demands from HMRC as a result.

The committee launched its inquiry after Carrie Gracie, the BBC’S former China editor, resigned over the issue of equal pay. Further questions were raised when the BBC published a list of staff earning more than £150,000 – two-thirds of whom, including the seven highest earners, were men.

The BBC, however, hit back at the report. A spokesman said: “While we still have more to do, much of this is already out of date.”

Addressing the accusation that the BBC had breached the Equality Act, the spokesman said: “We don’t believe this is true. The BBC has one of the lowest gender pay gaps in the media industry – and this year it fell by a fifth.

“But we do hold ourselves to a higher standard. That is why our action on pay has seen the BBC make real progress in addressing equal pay cases, carry out an independent audit of equal pay overseen by a former Court of Appeal judge, take clear steps to rebalance toptalent pay and give an unprecedented level of transparency and information about pay ranges for all staff.”

The broadcaster’s annual report this year showed that the gender pay gap at the corporation had dropped from 9.3per cent to 7.6 per cent.