IoD reaction to Government Equality Strategy

Dated: 2 December 2010

Responding to the Government’s publication The Equality Strategy – Building a Fairer Britain and, in particular, the Government’s new policy on gender pay audits, Miles Templeman, Director General of the Institute of Directors, said:

“There are signs that this Government is not inclined to force firms to carry out gender pay audits, and that is welcome. There is no justification for the Government using regulation in this area. We believe that the vast majority of businesses are rightly paying women the same as men for the same work. It’s a pity that ministers didn’t go further and scrap the powers to compel pay audits created by the last Government. Also, we would’ve have been more assured if a formal commitment had been given today to not introduce pay audits over the course of this Parliament.

He added:

“While there may be some instances of illegal discrimination still taking place, we believe this is very uncommon. Instead of leaving pay audits on the table, the Government should have accepted the hard evidence which shows that influences and choices made by women at the pre-employment stage are what generally lead to average gender pay differences.”

ENDS

Contact Points

Edwin Morgan
Media Relations Manager
Institute of Directors, 116 Pall Mall, London SW1Y 5ED
Tel: +44 (0)20 7451 3392
Mob: +44 (0)7814 386 243
Email: edwin.morgan@iod.com
Website: www.iod.com/policy

Notes to editors

  • The IoD (Institute of Directors) was founded in 1903 and obtained a Royal Charter in 1906. The IoD is a non-party political organisation with upwards of 45,000 members in the United Kingdom and overseas. Membership includes directors from right across the business spectrum – from media to manufacturing, e-business to the public and voluntary sectors. Members include CEOs of large corporations as well as entrepreneurial directors of start-up companies.
  • The IoD offers a wide range of business services which include business centre facilities (including ten UK regional centres [three in London, Reading, Birmingham, Cardiff, Manchester, Nottingham, Edinburgh and Belfast] and one each in Paris and Brussels), conferences, networking events, virtual offices and hotdesking, issues-led guides and literature, as well as free access to business information and advisory services and a comprehensive Information Centre. The IoD places great emphasis on director development and has established a certified qualification for directors – Chartered Director – as well as running specific board-level and director-level training and individual career mentoring programmes.
  • In addition, the IoD provides an effective voice to represent the interests of its members to government and key opinion-formers at the highest levels. These include ministers, constituency MPs, Select Committee members and senior civil servants. IoD policies and views are actively promoted to the national, regional and trade media.
  • For further information, visit our website: www.iod.com
  • You can also keep up to date with the latest views from the IoD on twitter.com/The_IoD and at blogs.iod.com