In November 2011 our Prime Minister said that he was committed to end what he called the ‘scandal’ of women being paid less than men for doing the same job.
If that is right, he is going about things in a strange way.
His government are currently consulting about scrapping the statutory Questionnaire process. This is used by a person who believes she/he has been discriminated against in the workplace, for example, a female employee who believes she has been paid less than her male colleagues, to question her employer and seek information about pay and practices to see whether there has been discrimination. This process is long established having been in place for decades now and is a vital tool for a person who believes they have been discriminated against, enabling that person to obtain true facts and figures, such as pay levels between employees, particularly important when the employer tries to hide such information from its employees (very common in my experience). If this tool is scrapped it will have an enormous, adverse impact on women, disabled persons, minority ethnic groups and so forth within the workplace, making it even harder than it is now for them to show they have suffered discrimination. It will do nothing to help stop pay inequalities; in fact it will make things worse.
The Equality Act 2010 gave an Employment Tribunal wider ranging powers to require employers to stop discriminatory practices (known as ‘recommendations’). In my view, this was an extremely positive development of enormous benefit to not only those who have been discriminated against in a workplace, but the rest of the workforce, as such recommendations are designed to prevent future discrimination. Again, the government is currently consulting about scrapping this power.
The Government has just announced consultation on bringing in mandatory pay audits for employers who lose equal pay claims in an Employment Tribunal. Sounds good on the face of it, but if it’s even harder for an employee to win such a claim because Questionnaires are scrapped, the likelihood of an employer losing reduces.
Scrapping the Questionnaire process and Employment Tribunal recommendations is a scandal in my view and will find favour only with employers who discriminate and use discriminatory practices in their pay systems.
David Sorensen - Partner
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