Employment Rights Bill essentials: Gender equality action plan

Published: 4 December 2024 | Stephen Simpson, acting content manager – employment law and compliance at Brightmine

In the first of a new series delving into the details of the Employment Rights Bill, we look at the plan to require large employers to publish an action plan on the steps that they are taking to address the gender pay gap and support employees going through the menopause.

What is changing?

The Employment Rights Bill enables the Government to introduce legislation that requires employers with 250 or more employees — and relevant public-sector employers — to develop and publish a gender equality action plan showing the steps that they are taking to advance equality of opportunity between men and women.

In particular, the legislation will require employers to set out in their action plan how they are:

• Addressing the gender pay gap.
• Supporting employees going through the menopause.

It is the Government’s intention to update the gender pay gap reporting area on the GOV.UK website to include a list of actions for employers to identify which ones they are taking. Employers will be encouraged, but not required, to provide further details on their own website of the actions that they are taking.

The legislation is not expected to require employers to implement action plans. In other words, the carrying out of the action plan will be left to the employer and implementation will not be enforced.

The Employment Rights Bill also paves the way for the addition to gender pay gap reporting of a requirement for employers to identify providers/employers of contract workers. However, those workers’ data does not have to be provided.

As with existing reporting requirements, the publication of an action plan will be enforceable by the Equality and Human Rights Commission. The Government has stated that it intends to create a new Regulatory Enforcement Unit for equal pay — it remains to be seen what role the unit will play in enforcement here.

Practical implications for employers

• Large employers that already have gender pay gap reporting obligations will have to meet these additional reporting requirements.
• The new requirements are expected to be an “add-on” to existing reporting, with the information being published at the same time as the gender pay gap is reported.
• Employers that already produce this type of action plan can feel that they are well set up to cope with these additional requirements. Indeed, some employers choose to publish a supporting narrative alongside their gender pay gap setting out what actions they are taking to achieve gender equality.
• There is a risk that some employers may be exposed as taking inadequate action, or no action at all, to tackle the gender pay gap and support employees going through the menopause.
• Some employers may be taking action to address the gender pay gap but have not focused on menopause support. The extended reporting obligations are a good opportunity for these employers to introduce menopause support.

What happens next?

Further legislation is needed to flesh out the proposals, with a public consultation on draft regulations a possibility.

There will need to be a list of the potential actions from which employers can select on the gender pay gap reporting area of the GOV.UK website.

The GOV.UK website is also expected to house guidance for employers on producing an action plan and guidance on providing menopause support.

The Employment Rights Bill is unlikely to receive Royal Assent before summer 2025 and the Government has said that most of the changes will not take effect until 2026. This means that the earliest possible dates that the gender pay gap reporting changes will apply are:

• A snapshot date of 5 April 2026 for the private and voluntary sectors (31 March 2026 for the public sector).
• A reporting deadline for the previous year’s snapshot date of 4 April 2027 for the private and voluntary sectors (30 March 2027 for the public sector).