Voluntary pay gap reporting framework

2025.09.30

4.15   Deputy L.M.C. Doublet of St. Saviour of the Chief Minister regarding the voluntary pay gap reporting framework (OQ.223/2025):

Will the Chief Minister detail the progress being made in implementing the voluntary pay gap reporting framework and advise whether this is proving to be effective in tackling them, including those relating to gender, ethnicity, disability and any other such pay gaps identified?

Deputy L.J. Farnham of St. Mary , St. Ouen and St. Peter (The Chief Minister): I understand Deputy Alves is taking the question.

Deputy C.S. Alves of St. Helier Central (Assistant Chief Minister - rapporteur):

The Government remain committed in their efforts to encourage and make it as easy as possible for the private sector to report voluntarily on their gender pay gap. That includes making available a voluntary pay gap reporting framework. To achieve this, the Government have continued to work closely with the Institute of Directors and Mind the Gap Jersey. Jointly, a structure for guidance and a toolkit have been agreed upon and this structure complements the reporting systems already in place by Government and Statistics Jersey. The agreed structure has formed the basis of Mind the Gap instructions given to their Scott ish counterparts and they are currently in the process of writing the guidance and framework for Jersey and it is anticipated it will be completed by the end of October. Once reviewed, the Government and the I.o.D. (Institute of Directors) and Mind the Gap will review it and work jointly on promoting and encouraging businesses to report their pay gap as well as providing narratives and action plans each year. The scope of this work has focused solely on the gender pay gap and has not addressed areas of ethnicity or disability.

[11:15]

1. Deputy L.M.C. Doublet :

I thank the Assistant Minister for her answer. It is really good to hear that progress is being made on this to encourage businesses to use this template. When the template is ready, hopefully there will be some comms from Government to promote it. If the Minister could confirm that and also where can those companies send their pay gap reports to? Will there be a central email address or somewhere where that can be collected by Government?

Deputy C.S. Alves :

I can absolutely confirm that there will definitely be some comms going out about that, and I am happy to confirm that. The data has historically been published within annual reports of each organisation. I know that is not always easy to sift through, so I am happy to maybe find a solution to try to centralise that and maybe make some space on the Government website in order to publish that.

2. Deputy R.S. Kovacs of St. Saviour :

What additional support or incentive is the Government providing to encourage more organisations to participate in the voluntary reporting framework?

Deputy C.S. Alves :

We hope that by having the I.o.D. on board and the Mind the Gap group that this will provide a way to help encourage other companies to do this. We also know that we have some specific organisations that already report on their gender pay gap, like our arm's length bodies and shareholders: Andium Homes, Jersey Post, Jersey Telecoms, Ports of Jersey and the States of Jersey Development Company. I would like to think that good companies will see this as an opportunity for good publicity and hopefully that will encourage others to follow suit, but we are always openminded and welcome hearing any suggestions in order to help.

3. Deputy R.S. Kovacs :

Is there a plan to review or expand the framework to include other types of pay gaps such as those based on age or caring responsibilities? If so, on what timeline?

Deputy C.S. Alves :

That is not something that is currently being looked at. The Chief Minister made a commitment to the gender pay gap, but I think that is an area that should be looked at probably in the next political term. I will say that Social Security are in the early stages of some engagement with the private sector in relation to potential unemployment of various groups, including those with disabilities, but that work is very much in the early stage at the moment.

4. Deputy L.M.C. Doublet :

Is there going to be a tipping point whereby if this voluntary reporting does not result in companies voluntarily reporting, what is the tipping point of, say, the percentage of companies over a certain size that the Minister believes should be voluntarily reporting and if they do not, that we would need legislation?

Deputy C.S. Alves :

I think we just have to wait and see what happens. Obviously we have only got 9 months, is it, left of this political term? I suspect that the new Assembly and new Government will probably be looking at this and hopefully revise it. Obviously we have been discouraging against legislating for it because of the costs associated with that and also the added burden that that puts on to businesses, which was part of the Common Strategic Policy. One of the things in that was about reducing as much bureaucracy to businesses as possible, but I take on board the Deputy 's comments and I hope that maybe the next Government will be able to provide some tipping point, but we will just have to wait and see for that.