The government is working with the private sector to publish voluntary guidance on gender pay gap transparency, after confirming it will not make such reporting mandatory.
Assistant Chief Minister Carina Alves said the government has “no intention” of legislating gender pay gap reporting in a special scrutiny hearing on the topic this week.
The meeting, which was held by the Corporate Services Scrutiny Panel, aimed to establish what the government is doing to encourage gender pay gap reporting in both the public and private sectors.
It comes after Statistics Jersey’s most recent gender pay gap report – published in March – revealed an average gap of 7.8% in the Island during the 12 months leading up to June 2024.
The report’s publication prompted calls for government to take a more active role in encouraging transparency around company’s gender pay gaps.
Annual gender pay gap reporting has been mandatory in the UK for companies with 250 or more employees since 2017.
But Deputy Alves today said that there are no plans for the government to legislate mandatory gender pay gap reporting in Jersey.
The Assistant Chief Minister said it would place “too much burden on businesses”, and “entail quite a significant cost to government” to administrate and maintain.
Deputy Alves explained: “Instead, what government is doing is focussing resources on policies that will tackle social inclusion and equality, and looking at a framework that can be used and endorsed by government.”
This framework – which is being created alongside the private sector – aims to encourage voluntary gender pay gap reporting.
It is due to be published by the end of this year.
Deputy Alves said: “Getting that framework and guidance in place is imperative, then we can continue that positive relationship with private businesses to ensure that we’re all on the same page.
“Then we can be much more public and forthcoming about saying we want you to publish [gender pay gap data] and this is the guidance and this is how the framework that we’d like you to follow.”
