Gender Pay Gap Reporting

Inclusiveness is fundamental to the ethos of the YMCA Movement. We have a wholehearted commitment to welcome people of other faiths and those of none, linked to a confident identity as a Christian faith-based organisation.

This includes ensuring that diversity is reflected strongly within our structures and that the services and activities managed by YMCA England & Wales are designed to provide equal opportunities – with the Board and leadership team undertaking unconscious bias training. A great deal of work has been taken forward in 2020-21 to improve equality, diversity and inclusion.

This has included developing a strategy that ensures ownership of the agenda, raises awareness, and implements a number of targeted actions.

Salaries are based on the role regardless of the gender of the person performing the duties. YMCA England & Wales operates a staff grading system for all roles, where points are allocated based on the skills and responsibilities of each role, which determines the salary level for that role. Salary levels for each grade are set by benchmarking against other voluntary sector organisations. As we have more than 250 staff, we are required to give our gender pay analysis in the statutory format as of 5 April 2021:

As is shown in the table above, two-thirds of the staff working for YMCA England & Wales in April 2021 were female. In addition, over 80% of the staff employed by YMCA England & Wales work in Retail (many of whom welcome the ability to work part-time) consequently means that a more significant percentage of staff fall within the lower quartile bands. As a consequence, the above analysis is distorted and it is more meaningful to separate out the results of Retail staff from non-retail staff which provides for the following analysis:

The above analysis is further explained below.

• • Two thirds of the staff working for YMCA England & Wales are female;

• • In every pay quartile YMCA England & Wales employs more women than men (which is common throughout the voluntary sector). This is partly due to the range of family friendly and flexible working policies available to staff. The pay disparity shown in the table is largely due to the relatively low number of male employees;

• • As at April 2021, there were 4 people on the Senior Leadership Team of which 2 are female and 2 male; and

• • Over 80% of our staff work in the retail operation. Hourly rates for the Retail staff have been increased, and from March 2020, the lowest level is above the rates required by the National Living Wage.

Every role within YMCA England & Wales is benchmarked and considered against the market. YMCA England & Wales ensures its assessment of salaries is undertaken against a robust job evaluation process and consistent with our range of policies that ensure fair recruitment. We continue to review the implications of our gender pay gap statement and specifically the gender balance of staffing across the organisation – in particular at the higher quartiles – and have an objective to review our pay and grading framework during 2021-22.