Context
Members of the International Underwriting Association (IUA) have supported plans to introduce mandatory ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting. However, the organisation warned that requirements must be carefully assessed to ensure that any data collected is both effective and appropriately safeguarded.
Key points to note and next actions
- The IUA’s comments came in response to an official Government consultation on a proposed Equality (Race and Disability) Bill, which suggests that large firms of more than 250 employees
- However, companies cannot compel employees to disclose their ethnicity, and voluntary participation rates can be low. Similarly, disability data relies on employees self-reporting.
- As a result, there are concerns that individual salaries could become identifiable.
- Some IUA companies believe that a threshold of 1,000 employees would be more appropriate than the proposed 250 limit
- The IUA’s consultation response states that pay gap data, while a useful indicator, can sometimes provide only a limited view