Women in our fire service are still being paid almost £1 an hour less than their male colleagues, the latest gender pay gap figures have revealed.

Reports published ahead of a Shropshire and Wrekin Fire and Rescue Service committee meeting next week show that while a disproportionate number of male employees occupy the highest-paid roles in the authority, its gender pay gap has closed by two per cent since last year and remains significantly lower than the national average.

The service has also identified an under-representation of black and ethnic minority workers, and those from the LGBT+ community.

Its annual gender pay report, required by law for all organisations with more than 250 employees, concludes women employees are paid on average six per cent less than men – around 94p per hour – down from eight per cent last year. The national average is 17.3 per cent.

It says: “The service believes that the gender pay gap does not arise from paying men and women differently for the same work.

“However, the gap exists as a result of the job roles in which they work and the salary that these roles may attract, especially within the non-uniformed departments.

“There are essentially more males occupying higher level positions within the service.”

While women represent 15 per cent of the fire service’s employees, they represent only 12 per cent of its highest earners but 29 per cent of its lowest.

This is an improvement on the previous year, when only eight per cent of the best paying jobs were occupied by female staff, compared to 34 per cent of the lower paid roles.

The report says: “The service is committed to ensuring and achieving an inclusive workforce and proactively targets opportunities to encourage female representation at all levels of the organisation.”

The strategy and resources committee will also examine the service’s latest diversity statistics, which reveal that as of December 31, 2019, just five out of 599 employees (0.83 per cent) identified as lesbian, gay or bisexual, despite “generally accepted” estimates putting the percentage of LGBT+ people in the country at seven to 10 per cent. The service does not currently monitor numbers of staff identifying as transgender, though this is due to be reviewed.

Meanwhile only 11 staff members (1.84 per cent) were from black and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds, despite that demographic making up seven per cent of the population of Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin according to the 2011 census.

But the equality monitoring report says the figures may not be accurate due to the number of employees whose sexuality and/or ethnicity was recorded as ‘unknown’ or ‘prefer not to say’.

The report says: “Members will note that in comparison with the wider community profile of Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin there are very low numbers of employees from BAME communities, of lesbian, gay and

bisexual people, and that women are disproportionately under-represented in the operational workforce.

“The Service continues to encourage staff to accurately report their personal details and this will form part of the national work on inclusion supported by the Home Office over the coming year. “