EDI Statement of Principles
By being committed to providing equality of access to services and equality of service delivery, we aim to ensure that everyone receives the same high standard of service.
It’s also important to recognise that in order to achieve this equality of service we need to understand the differences that exist across our communities and people. We should always look to recognise how these differences impact on how we interact and deliver services, as well as find ways to meet the wider variety of needs that our customers may have.
Finally, it is vital that we find ways to make sure everyone feels included at Beyond Housing. We aim to be an open, transparent and inclusive organisation which doesn’t discriminate based on any protected characteristic, cultural (and sub-cultural) identity or any other personal characteristic which may lead to someone feeling isolated in our communities.
We will achieve this through our values in the following way:
By everyone embracing and living our Statement of Principles we believe that we can play a massive part in developing our local communities, improving customer and colleague satisfaction and encouraging everyone to be themselves.
Colleagues should recognise different perspectives of colleagues and customers and tailor their approach to meet specific needs.
Every decision we make should be done with accountability at its heart, from one to one conversations with customers to impact assessing all policies and new services.
Different ideas and perspectives are proven to make projects more successful so we encourage colleagues to champion diversity within their work, engage with different colleagues to understand different perspectives and be more successful.
Introducing our 2024 Equalities Pay Gap Report
This is Beyond Housing’s fifth equalities pay gap report and our sixth gender pay gap report. This report explains our approach to pay and compares our data against our data for the previous year. This is a pay gap report, not a full equalities report that might look to compare our colleague composition with the composition of the population from which we recruit. Our EDI Champions and our EDI steering group have a comprehensive action plan for the advancement of EDI that includes looking at our colleague and recruitment data and commits to exploring appropriate positive action to enhance our inclusive culture. In the last year we were ranked again within the top 100 inclusive workspaces by the National Centre for Diversity and we remain accredited with Investors in Diversity award.
Our data
We have expanded our gender pay gap reporting to also cover other minority groups. However there are some protected characteristics for which we are unable to produce pay gap data. There is no main ‘reference’ group against which to compare the pay of the defined ‘minority group’ for age and marital status. Additionally there is little benefit in calculating the pay gap for those who are pregnant or on maternity leave given maternity pay may reduce to less than 100% after 6 weeks.
For the purpose of this report where a (+) or (-) is displayed it indicates the direction of movement from the previous year’s report.
All data in this report has been calculated using the standard methodologies used in The Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017. Data is based on pay for the pay period that includes Wednesday 5 April 2023 (our April 2023 pay data) and bonus payments paid between Wednesday 6 April 2022 and Wednesday 5 April 2023.
The data uses relevant colleagues employed in the reference period (758 colleagues). All data except bonus pay gap is based on only those in receipt of full pay (758 colleagues).
The mean pay is our average pay. This is calculated by add up all salaries and dividing by the number of people paid.
The median pay is the middle value in our pay, calculated by listing all salaries in order of size and picking the middle number.
Read more about our pay gaps for the different characteristics below.
Gender
This report analyses the difference in average earnings between male and female colleagues. This gap can be influenced by various factors, including differences in career choices and the salaries these roles attract.
Ethnicity
This report compares the average earnings of different ethnic groups within a company. This gap can arise due to cultural differences in career aspirations, language barriers, and historical inequalities.
Disability
This report analyses the difference in average earnings between colleagues with and without disabilities. This gap can be influenced by accessibility issues and availability of workplace accommodations.
Sexual orientation
This report examines the difference in average earnings between LGBTQ+ and heterosexual colleagues. This gap can be caused by various factors, including availability of inclusive policies.
Religion
This report analyses the differences in average earnings of colleagues based on their religious beliefs. This gap can be affected by flexibility in certain roles allowing time for prayer and other religious practices.
CEO ratio
This report examines the difference in the CEO hourly rate compared to the whole company hourly rate.
Our approach to pay
We are committed to equality, diversity & inclusion for all our colleagues (we prefer to call them colleagues to better reflect their contribution and accountability for our success) and appoint people to roles based on merit regardless of age, race, gender, marital status, sexual orientation, disability, pregnancy or maternity, gender reassignment or religion and belief. We strive to ensure our colleagues are paid equally for the same or equivalent work, regardless of their sex or any other characteristic set out above by:
- Applying an open and transparent pay band structure based on the outputs from a job evaluation tool for all roles up to senior manager level. The job evaluation tool assesses all roles against the same non-discriminatory criteria and was developed nationally in conjunction with recognised trade unions
- Externally benchmarking senior manager roles with relevant comparator organisations.
In 2021 we reviewed our payment calculations for out of hours rotas, creating a single standby payment regardless of basic pay, and a standard method of calculation for call out payments based on basic pay. This improved pay rates for mostly female colleagues within our Reach & Respond service.
In 2023 we started a project to review how we set basic pay, exploring whether to continue with job evaluation as the sole or main tool for determining pay, or whether benchmarking with the sector was more appropriate. A proposal to amend pay setting methodology has been approved by board and at the time of writing this report, a consultation was due to commence with colleagues, for an implementation date of April 2025.
We pay the real living wage as set by the Living Wage Foundation which exceeds the National Living Wage set by Government. This includes our Apprentices after their first year. In their first year we pay more than the National Living Wage for apprentices, paying them at least £8.60 per hour (equivalent to the National Living Wage for 18-20 year olds). From 01 April 2025 this will rise to at least £10.00.
We have a range of flexible working options to enable our colleagues to effectively manage their work/life balance e.g. agile working involving flexible hours and locations (working up to 2 days per week away from site if the role permits this), accrued hours (working slightly more hours per week to ‘accrue’ a number of additional days leave, part-time, condensed hours, shared parental leave, annual leave above the statutory minimum and Christmas closure. We actively encourage many of our colleagues to work agilely, creating a trust-based environment for them to achieve their objectives without dictating when, where and how they achieve them (as much as possible, depending on the service they provide to internal or external customers). This helps them manage their work life along with their other commitments, and we started a programme of remodelling our colleague premises to support this style of working. Our office in Redcar was remodelled in 2022/23, our Redcar depot is being remodelled in 2024/25 and we are actively exploring the options for our Scarborough office.
Regular equality, diversity and inclusion training is mandatory for all colleagues.
Through our elected colleague representatives, our recognised trade unions and our colleague satisfaction survey, we encourage colleagues to raise ideas about how to improve their experience at work; this includes any issues they believe contribute to inequality, discrimination or exclusion. Should any such issues be raised we will work with them to break down barriers where they exist.
We are open and transparent with our colleagues about our pay gaps and encourage them to contribute ideas for ensuring pay gaps are closed or eliminated in the future.
As we continue our work to develop our pay and rewards offer we will monitor the impact of our actions on our pay gaps, and take appropriate action where necessary.
Signed Statement
We confirm the data reported in this document is accurate.
Rosemary Du Rose – Chief Executive
Anne Parker – Chair
