Gender Pay Gap Report 2021

Background

As of January 2022 London & Country Mortgages Ltd (L&C) employs 1,127 at its offices in Bath, London, Newcastle and its virtual office. We’re publishing our gender pay gap report in accordance with the Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations. An important thing to point out is that the gender pay gap is not the same as equal pay. Equal pay is the requirement that all men and women who carry out the same or similar jobs are paid the same. We are confident that men and women are paid equally for doing equal jobs across the organisation.

Our gender pay gap

The table below shows our mean and median pay and bonus gap on 5th April 2021 as well as comparisons to our 2020 data.

L&C’s median pay gap is higher in 2020/2021 at 16.7% than the national average of 15.4%¹. This decreased from 2019/2020 as it was at 26.5%. On the contrary the bonus gap has increased, the median increased from 41.6% in 2019/2020 to 56% in 2020/2021.

The underlying reason for the pay gap is like most of the financial services industry, we have a higher proportion of men within our business working in higher paid senior, technical and sales roles. In the lower quartile of the business however there are more females; specifically in this lower quartile there are 93 men to 114 females. Most of our part-time female employees work in lower paid, minimal bonus or no bonus administration, though this is changing on an annual basis.

In 2019 and 2020 we deliberately paused our adviser recruitment to evaluate the investment we had made in technology. In 2021 the adviser recruitment resumed, however this did not change the proportion of male to female in adviser roles much.

Across the whole business the proportion of female employees stayed more or less static in 2021. When taking into account our relevant employees there were 517 males to 314 females in 2021 and in 2020 502 males to 302 females but there were limited opportunities to join the company to work in roles with greater earning potential.

1. Source: Gender pay gap in the UK: 2021, Office for National Statistics, 17 January 2022

This trend is highlighted in the following charts, which show that while the proportion of men is higher in three pay quartiles the % of women has continued to increase year on year in the majority of the quartiles. The upper middle quartile however has a reduced proportion of women in 2021, now 77% male to 23% female.

The proportion of men and women in each pay quartile

2020-21

2019-20

The proportion of men and women receiving a bonus payment

2020-21

2019-20

The charts above show that the number of female colleagues receiving bonus awards continued to reduce in 2020/21. This reflects the change in the remuneration approach for our administrative colleagues, which are populated by a greater proportion of female employees. In 2018 we introduced a revised rewards package that included the consolidation of previous bonus awards into salary along with a quarterly performance scheme that enables colleagues to achieve salary (and therefore pensionable) increases rather than one off bonus payments. In 2020 we updated this scheme and increased salaries again. This was with the view of aiding financial stability.

Actions to close the gap

As we have explained in our previous annual gender pay gap reports, we remain committed to ensuring that everyone has an equal chance to fulfil their career aspirations and potential at L&C – whatever their gender. We continue to work on building a more diverse and inclusive culture. To do this, we are focusing on the following key areas:

1. Implementation of an enhanced maternity & paternity policy to attract and retain more women, particularly in sales and senior management roles. In the advice section for example, 75-80% of colleagues are male. This new policy allows enhanced pay for those who choose to take up the benefit. This aids females to feel more financially stable and gives them more choice in the hope that they will return to their position after their maternity leave.
   We are also currently working with a specialist recruitment consultant who is reviewing & revising our recruitment policies & procedures with an aim to attract a more diverse pool of candidates.
2. We continue to seek colleague views on flexible working and future ways of working in order to enable us to review our practices. This is to help our colleagues manage their work/life balance and meet their family commitments, while continuing to meet the needs of our customers. Flexible working arrangements are continuously discussed and as a result of the COVID 19 pandemic the business gives all colleagues the opportunity to work either full time at home or by means of hybrid working. This allows greater flexibility. We also operate a more relaxed approach to working times and patterns than we have in the past. We continue to explore flexible working as we reflect on the ever-changing needs of the workforce.
3. The business will be focussing on diversity & inclusion as part of the We Belong initiative. The first step is to carry out a non mandatory survey to analyse the demographic of the workforce. We will also launch a forum dedicated to We Belong, as well as introduce external training for all employees on a wide range of D&I subjects.
4. Continue to embed our company values of being Supportive, Connected, Dynamic and Respectful through all our recruitment, colleague training sessions and our recognition scheme. On a quarterly basis our colleagues identify and reward their peers who display our values and behaviours through nominations. We will continue to work on ways to enable us to evaluate and recognise performance on both the outputs, e.g. what has been delivered, as well as inputs, e.g. how a colleague’s behaviour has influenced their performance. We are also currently working on incorporating our values into our interview processes.
5. Continuing to review and adapt our reward policies and practices to recognise the different skills and behaviours required by a company of our size. In 2021 the basic salary for Advice and Customer Facing Admin increased and this was very well received as this gives colleagues consistency for their own financial planning.
6. Undertaking an exercise to identify colleagues who display potential for the future – building a pipeline of colleagues, at all levels of our business, who could fulfil more senior positions throughout the company, supporting them with individual development plans and specific training interventions.
7. Enhancing our line management capability to enable all those in management/supervisory capacity to support their team members in developing their skills and progressing within L&C. February 2022 begins with a full sweep of Line Manager Training covering topics such as discrimination, diversity, the Equality Act 2010 and recruitment. This will provide all managers with the tools and techniques to develop their knowledge and understanding.

As per previous reports, L&C remains on a journey and accepts that it will take time to achieve a significant impact on our gender pay gap but remains committed to doing so to create a fulfilling and inclusive working environment for all our current and prospective colleagues.

David Gray, HR Director

Note: We confirm that our data is accurate and has been calculated according to the requirements of The Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017.