The final Equality Act (Gender Pay Information) Regulations 2016 for the private and voluntary sectors were originally due to be published this summer and to come into force on 1st October 2016. The Government Equalities Office (GEO) has recently indicated that although the response to the consultation on the draft regulations will be published “in due course”, publication of the final regulations has been delayed until Autumn. The regulations are expected to come into force in April 2017, with employers to publish the first gender pay gap reports by no later than April 2018.
On 18th August 2016, the government also published a consultation on imposing gender pay gap reporting obligations to public sector employers with 250 or more employees. The proposals envisage introducing the same approach for the public sector as for the private and voluntary sector, and for the changes to be implemented within the same timescale. This would mean the first data "snapshot" being captured in April 2017 with employers publishing the relevant pay information by April 2018. The proposals contain some indicators of what changes are likely to be made in the final Regulations.
