50:50 Gender Equality Group
12 July 2012
MINUTES
Present:
Annette Dolphin (Chair)
Rob de Bruin
Rosalind Duhs
Sarah Guise
Marjan Jahanshahi
Charlotte Lemanski
Geraint Rees
Judith Stephenson
Patrick Woolfe
Ifat Yasin
In attendance: Sonal Bharadva (Secretary), Kate Jeffery (PALS), Geoff Lang
(Human Resources), Jean Mcewan (SLMS), Mark Rice (Human Resources),
Diana Warwick (UCL Council Gender Equality Champion).
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Apologies were received from David Atwell, Mary Collins, Purvangi Dave,
Sarah Winmill.
1. Welcome, minutes and matters arising
1.1 Annette Dolphin (AD) welcomed the group and introduced Geoff Lang
(GL), Mark Rice (MR) and Kate Jeffery (KJ) who were due to present data
to the group.
1.2 Minutes – it was decided at the last Committee of Equal Opportunities
meeting that the make up of recruitment panels would include 25%
women. The group agreed that this should be redefined as 25% or the
minimum of one woman on each recruitment panel.
Action: SG
2. Equal pay at UCL
2.1 GL introduced himself as the Director of HR Policy and Planning and MR
as UCL’s Reward Manager to the group.
2.2 GL explained that over the last 10 years or so, the HE sector had been
concentrating on delivering a modernised pay framework and ensuring
compliance at the very least with equal pay legislation. As a result, UCL
were complying with the law and the introduction of the Equality Act 2010
had reinforced the need to ensure equal pay for work of equal value
across organisations.
2.3 GL noted that equal pay had come a long way at UCL. Up until 20052006 there were a very large number of unrelated pay grades in place
across the institution. There was no way to compare work of equal value
across different types of jobs. The national pay framework had however
introduced one grading structure at UCL to cover all jobs. This had
resulted in a situation where at grades 1-9 no significant pay gaps exist.
2.4 GL explained that complying with the law did not mean that everybody
had to be paid the same even if they were doing the same job. Staff had to
be paid a basic salary within a certain pay range, although pay could also
be outside these ranges if there was a good business case to do so. This
was very rare at UCL in grades 1-9 however.
2.5 GL suggested that the next big challenge for equal pay at UCL was to
deal with a continuing pay gap at Grade 10, although pay banding at this
level had closed the gap for professors a little; and also to address the
overall gender pay gap across the institution, although this was caused by
fewer females in the top grades so was not something that action on pay
reform alone could resolve.
2.6 MR delivered a presentation highlighting key figures in relation to equal
pay and gender pay at UCL. The following points were made:
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There were very minimal differences in pay within grades 1-9
For grade 10 staff in administrative posts the equal pay gap was 9.7%.
The reason behind this was that grade 10 had a huge variance in both
the size of jobs and responsibility and the subsequent pay associated
to those roles
That the roles of the grade 10 staff are currently being looked at with
the aim of providing more structure and clarity.
There had been a pay freeze for all grade 10 staff
There were approximately 85 posts in administrative grade 10 – 40%
were held by women and 60% were held by men. The proportion of
women was higher than in academic posts at the same level- i.e.
professorial posts.
Prior to the professorial banding exercise Professors had no pay
ranges determined by criteria. This was no longer the case.
There was an 8.4% pay gap between the average salaries of male and
female professors across all bands. In part this gender pay gap was
determined by the distribution of male and female professors across
the bands- female professors are most densely populated in band 1
with a lower proportion in band 2 and 3.
Before professorial banding this pay gap was higher than now
The professorial banding criteria had not been changed since it had
been implemented. It is intended that the process will be reviewed.
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So far in the latest round of rebandings proportionally more women had
been re-banded than men. If this carries on it will increase the
proportion women in band 2.
Deans were asked to look though data to address any unjustifiable
anomalies
It was asked who made decisions regarding professorial pay. Deans
could award a figure based on outstanding performance, however if the
figure was in excess of that it had to be agreed by Provost but would
go to MR first in his capacity as Reward Manager at UCL.
There was a variance in pay gaps by Faculty.
Where faculties had more female professors than male (e.g. Arts &
Humanities), the pay gap was in favour of women.
Data relating to clinical grades had not been compared in the latest
round but it was suggested that there wasn’t significant pay gap in this
area in the past.
The proportion of female Deans at UCL was about 22% (2 female, 7
male).
The following actions were suggested:
 Comprehensive leadership programmes for women would be
developed
 It was intended that the 2-day induction for HoDs would be reviewed to
include something on equal pay so that HoDs and Deans would be
more aware of any gaps in their area.
Action: GL to speak to HR Director about including a section about
equal pay on the HoDs induction
Action: GL to report back to the group in 6 months time
3. Measuring academic productivity by gender
3.1 KJ delivered a presentation titled ‘Productivity analysis for SWAN.’ It was
commented that in 2006, UCL were near the bottom of the list of Russell
Group universities regarding the pay gap, as male staff earned 20% more
than female staff. The question was whether this was for demographic
reasons (e.g., more male professors) or other factors such as differential
productivity.
3.2 The department of Psychology and Language Sciences (PaLS) were
considered unique among Science,Technology, Engineering and
Mathematics (STEM) departments with a ratio of close to 50:50
female:male members of staff, allowing valid statistical comparisons.
3.3 The following points were made by KJ during her presentation:
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Both in the 2006-2009 analysis, and in the 2009-2011 analysis, there
were no overall differences in relation to male:female research
productivity – however, at mid-career there were several highly
publishing highly cited males recorded.
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Grant income did not differ by gender.
Non-research productivity in the recent analysis also did not differ by
gender.
The plan was to look at whether at an individual level, pay was
proportional to productivity.
3.4 The following points were made in the ensuing discussion:
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There was a potential relation between productivity and hours worked.
Women with family responsibilities were not able to work longer hours
so if men were more productive by working longer hours, were they
more likely to be kept in post? It was noted that in fact, evidence
seemed to be that (at least in PaLS) they were not more productive,
unless pure publication rate was the sole criterion.
Within PaLS, the data showed that men and women were producing
equally overall, but it was yet to be shown that they were being paid
equally.
It was suggested that more quantitative data, such as h-factor and the
other productivity analyses, should perhaps be used in the banding
reviews.
4. Disruptive women – a new paper on gender equality
4.1 The above agenda item was carried forward due to the overrunning of the
meeting.
5. Any other business
5.1 Athena SWAN charter – Bronze Award Renewal. A call for volunteers to
join a sub-group to review UCL’s Bronze Award was requested. The
renewal required a self-assessment team to be set up.
Action: volunteers were asked to contact SG
5.2 League of European Research Universities (LERU). A gender equality
paper from LERU was forwarded to SG. The paper was due to be
circulated within the group, but it was asked that it would not to be
circulated any further.
Action: SG
5.3 It was reported by DW that there was specific discussion on gender
equality at the last Council meeting in May. UCL’s Senior Management
Team were due to discuss this further and respond with recommendations.
They had been given 6 months to report back to Council.
5.4 A conference was due to be organised and held on the next International
Women’s Day in March 2013. It was expected that it would highlight issues
around work-life balance in academia and would engage the Grand
Challenge of Human Well-being.