We review the equal pay enforcement and pay transparency aspects of the UK Government’s latest call for evidence.
Background
Equal pay and pay transparency are hot topics in the world of employment law, whether that be due to the recent high profile equal pay cases in the UK retail sector or the newly introduced EU Pay Transparency Directive in Europe.
The Labour Government’s ‘Plan to Make Work Pay’ committed to tackling the gender pay gap and pay discrimination at work. In April 2025, the UK Government launched a call for evidence on potential equality law reforms, including in relation to equal pay and pay transparency obligations and processes. We have written separately on the wider equality law proposals set out in the call for evidence.
The call for evidence will be open for 12 weeks (closing on 30 June 2025) and requests evidence and views about the existing equal pay framework to both better understand how the law is currently operating and help inform equality law reform in this area.
Enforcement of equal pay rights
The call for evidence notes that since March 2008, equal pay claims have “typically exceeded 10,000 annually” and are “among the highest numbers of complaints across all Employment Tribunal jurisdictions”. However equal pay litigation is, at present, extremely complex and long-winded, with many cases taking years to reach any form of conclusion and only 1% of claims reaching final full hearing stage. This has led to questions as to whether equal pay rights are being effectively enforced and whether the ability to bring an individual claim is the best way to protect complainants.
Currently, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (‘EHRC’), as the body responsible for enforcing the Equality Act 2010, has a range of litigation and investigative powers to enforce equal pay obligations, including providing legal assistance to claimants, bringing legal proceedings against employers on employees’ behalf, issuing unlawful act notices and entering into binding agreements with companies. Whilst the EHRC has had some activity in this area, the degree to which it successfully enforces and protects equal pay rights across the private sector is being reviewed to consider if it is possible to go further.
As part of the Government’s wider commitment to improve state enforcement of employment rights, leading to key reforms in the Employment Rights Bill (see our article here), this call for evidence considers whether the establishment of a new Equal Pay Regulatory and Enforcement Unit could improve the enforcement of equal pay. The proposed new unit, if this reform is pursued, will operate with the involvement of trade unions to absorb and build on the obligations and powers of the EHRC to strengthen equal pay provisions, including the ability to:
- undertake litigation by providing legal advice and representation to claimants, bring legal proceedings on behalf of claimants and intervene in ongoing legal proceedings;
- make use of other enforcement powers, such as to pursue investigations, enter into statutory agreements with employers, seek injunctions against employers in breach and issue compliance notices;
- offer “non-legal advice and assistance” to individuals or groups who may have suffered from pay discrimination;
- facilitate informal dispute resolution; and
- provide training on equal pay and good practice for employers, HR professionals and employees.
In addition, the unit could take on greater research and monitoring to build understanding, best practice and capacity with allied sectors, organisations and communities to “support them in challenging pay discrimination.”
The call for evidence seeks views on the current enforcement framework and detailed proposals are still to be confirmed. How far this will impact employers remains to be seen and will largely depend on how well resourced and proactive such an enforcement unit would be in investigating, preventing and penalizing equal pay breaches.
Improving pay transparency
The call for evidence seeks to better understand the extent to which greater pay transparency and reporting requirements can reduce the prevalence of gender pay gaps and pay discrimination.
Since 2017, organisations with 250 or more employees in Great Britain have been required to calculate and publish specific gender pay gap data annually, however, at present, the information required to be shared is limited, including comparisons of the average pay and bonuses of men and women across an organisation. It does not require reporting on comparisons based on other protected characteristics, such as ethnicity and disability (an obligation which the Government has separately committed to introduce – see our article here), nor does it involve the sharing of information about an individual’s pay or an organisation’s pay structure and job architecture.
As such, proposals for reform set out in the call for evidence include considering measures requiring employers to:
- provide the specific salary or salary ranges of a job on the job advert or prior to interview;
- refrain from asking candidates about their salary history;
- publish or provide employees with information on pay, pay structures and criteria for progression;
- provide employees with information on their pay level and how their pay compares to those doing the same role or work of equal value; and
- identify any actions needed to avoid equal pay breaches occurring or continuing.
The call for evidence also seeks views on whether the Employment Tribunal’s ability to require employers found to have committed an equal pay breach to undertake equal pay audits should be expanded to cases where pay discrimination has been found in relation to race and disability, alongside sex and maternity.
Such obligations would require UK employers to carry out substantial and wide-ranging planning, due diligence exercises and equal value assessments across their workforce. Whilst the recent EU Pay Transparency Directive does not apply to the United Kingdom post-Brexit, it appears that the broad concepts and principles underpinning the Directive are potentially not far from reaching our shores.
In particular, the first four proposed reforms above, concerning salary being included in job adverts or otherwise provided to applicants, a ban on applicants being asked about salary history, and a wide-ranging right for employees to request information on their pay as compared to those doing the same work or work of equal value and their employer’s pay criteria are closely aligned with some of the Pay Transparency chapter of the Directive – although potentially applying to race and disability in addition to sex.
Whilst this current call for evidence does not go as far as proposing to adopt the more onerous gender pay reporting obligations in the Directive, the similarities with regards to pay transparency demonstrate a cross-jurisdictional direction of travel towards increased obligations and compliance considerations for employers within the equal pay space and a potentially significant shift in global market practices.
Next steps
The call for evidence is the first step – once the Government has received and analysed the responses and evidence provided, it will need to decide whether it wishes to proceed with more concrete proposals. Any proposals adopted following analysis of such responses are likely to shape the content of the Equality (Race and Disability) Bill, which the Government has promised in due course.
Nevertheless, this request is a further demonstration of the Government’s activity in this area and commitment to implementing measures to address pay inequalities. Employers should be prepared that changes may be coming and consider any processes and evaluation tools that it can start to introduce to ensure a clear and justifiable pay and reward structure and identify any historic pay disparities.
