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Whitehall’s gender pay gap revealed

Women are paid 17% less than men at Department for Transport, despite the PM’s calls to tackle pay disparity

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Whitehall&#039;s gender pay gap is an embarrassment for the prime minister

(Image credit: Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP?Getty Images)

last updated 19 December 2017

Women are paid as much as 17% less than their male counterparts in some government departments, according to official statistics which show gender inequality across Whitehall.

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The Department of Transport has one of the worst pay discrepancies between men and women, with a 17.4% difference between men’s and women’s average hourly pay. Other departments with a sizeable divide include the Department for Exiting the European Union (15.26%), the Department of Health (14.2%), the Home Office (10.1%), and the Ministry of Defence (12.5%).

The MoD argues that the pay gap is representative of the higher number of men in more senior civilian defence roles and also the fact that there is a greater proportion of the female workforce at the minimum end of each pay scale.

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“The latest transparency data is likely to prompt calls for the Prime Minister Theresa May to do more to tackle gender pay inequality within the civil service,” coming as it does just weeks after she urged companies to take action on the issue, reports The Daily Telegraph.

Speaking to the paper, Zohra Francis, equality officer at the FDA union for senior public servants, said flaws in the pay system “can only be addressed by a fully-funded pay rise”.

“While the civil service should be applauded for shining a light on its gender pay gap with this latest data, departments have a long way to go if they are serious about closing it,” Francis said.

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