Equalities and the gender pay gap

Our duties under the Equality Act

The Equality Act 2010 introduced a number of duties on the public sector.

Within this, are specific duties covering the following protected characteristics: age, disability, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, pregnancy and maternity.

Our two specific duties are:

• To publish information about staff and the community - this can be found in our workforce profile

• To publish equality objectives for the organisation - this can be found in our equality objectives

There is also a general duty requiring all public bodies to take account of the need to:

• Eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation and other conduct the act prohibits

• Advance equality of opportunity between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not

• Foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not

Gender pay gap

Under The Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties and Public Authorities) Regulations 2017, we are required to publish statutory gender pay gap calculations every year.

Please visit the gender pay gap reports for Rushmoor Borough Council on the GOV.UK website for our figures.

Equality impact assessments

We publish our equality impact assessments to show how we have considered the local community where changes are anticipated that may have a potential impact on service users.

• Full Equality Impact Assessment - Customer Services
• Initial Equality Impact Assessment - Customer Services Unit

Apprenticeships

The government set a target for all public sector employers in England with at least 250 employees, to employ an average 2.3% of their staff headcount as new apprentice starts between 1 April 2017 and March 2022. Rushmoor Borough Council was one of only 30 councils to achieve this target.

The public sector apprenticeships target came to an end on 31 March 2022. From this date, there is no longer a target set in legislation for public sector employers. However, public sector employers, with 250 or more staff, will continue to report this data.

Below is the summary of the information for the Department of Education for 2022/23.