Enforcing pay equality

New rules to tackle inequality in salaries and bonuses

A new legal requirement will be placed in the UK to monitor and tackle gender pay gap: From 6th April 2017 employers with more than 250 staff will be required to annually publish figures related to gender pay gap, gender bonus gap and proportionality (related to bonus payment and staffing). 

The planned regulations will apply to businesses in England, Wales and Scotland and come with fines for non-compliance. The Chartered Management Institute said the new legislation would "force transparency" on companies.

The plan on bonuses is the first of a number of "equality-boosting measures" to be set out in detail this week and hopefully introduced in the first half of 2016, according to Downing Street.

Other steps include:

• Every company with more than 250 employees will be required by law to publish the difference between the average pay of their male and female employees
• The requirements will be extended to the public sector as well as private and voluntary sector employers
• A target to include women on the boards of all the UK's top 350 companies will be introduced - after the aim of getting women into at least a quarter of boardroom seats in FTSE 100 firms was met

Details of exactly what companies must publish and when the scheme will begin will be announced after the results of a consultation, which concluded in September, are released.