UK: the Equality Bill - gender pay gap reports + board diversity

Last Friday the Equality Bill was introduced in Parliament and was published yesterday. A copy of the Bill is available here. It is presented in a new and very helpful way: alongside each clause is a link which, when clicked, displays the explanatory notes for that clause. 

Clause 73 ("Gender pay gap information") has been much discussed. Its purpose is to encourage businesses with more than 250 employees to publish voluntarily information concerning the difference in pay, in percentage terms, between male and female employees. Clause 73 gives the Government the power to make regulations requiring such disclosure but the Government has indicated that it will not be exercised before April 2013.

Accompanying the Bill is a report published by the Government Equalities Office titled "A Fairer Future: the Equality Bill and other action to make equality a reality". This states that the Equality and Human Rights Commission will, over the summer, develop a set of metrics for gender pay reports. The report also refers to the gender composition of company boards - in the context of other provisions in the Bill designed to promote greater diversity in the workplace - and refers to research by Catalyst and McKinsey and Company which finds a correlation between board diversity and company performance.