Equality off ice pays men 6% more than women

A GOVERNMENT department planning to shame private firms over their gender salary gaps pays its own male civil servants almost six per cent more than female colleagues, The Mail on Sunday has learned.

The Government Equalities Office (GEO), which is run by Women’s Minister Justine Greening, also pays ethnic staff 12.3 per cent less than white colleagues.

For disabled staff, the gap is almost as large – they take home 11.25 per cent less than able-bodied colleagues, according to official figures for the Department for Education, which includes the GEO.

The revelation comes ahead of a new requirement for large firms to submit data on pay gaps for publication next year.

Tory backbencher Philip Davies, a member of the Women and Equalities Committee, said: ‘Given that one of the GEO’s top priorities is to stamp out these pay gaps across the country, I don’t see how it can be in a position to lecture everybody else on this when it can’t even manage to do it.

‘If the GEO can’t do it, how can they expect any other firm or organisation to do so? No doubt the reason there are pay gaps in this department is the very same reason why it exists elsewhere. When the Government department can find a way to actually achieve equality, I’m very happy for them to try to roll it out across the rest of the country.’

The DfE’s gender pay gap is narrower than that seen across the entire Civil Service, which stands at 13.6 per cent. In the country as a whole the figure is 18.1 per cent.

Firms employing more than 250 workers that fail to address pay differences will be highlighted in new league tables under plans to be announced this week. Private companies and voluntary organisations will be required to reveal the number of men and women in each pay range to show where the gaps are at their widest. The Department for Education refused to comment.