Men earn a fifth more than women at Sandwell NHS trust

The mean average gender pay gap at the Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust now sits at 22.76 per cent, after it rose by 2.76 per cent over the last year.

Public sector organisations are legally required to publish details of their gender pay gap.

Trust bosses said the data included bank workers as well as "non-gender specific items" such as salary sacrifice schemes, enhanced hours and pay deductions "which might skew pay".

However, it also said more men had been able to negotiate a higher starting pay point.

In a new report, director of people Rafaealla Goodby said "when median salaries were compared, females were actually paid slightly more per hour than male employees on average".

But the report added: "However, when viewed in the different professional groups, the median pay for males was higher."

The report claimed men were generally more successful at bumping up their pay on beginning employment, and that the issue would be looked at to ensure there was no gender bias.

The top roles at the trust are generally split between men and women. The chief executive, chief operating officer and medical director are men, while the interim chief nurse, director of governance, director of people and chief finance officer are women.

It said: "(Ms Goodby) reported that, anecdotally it was found that when new members of staff were recruited, men had been typically more effective than women in negotiating a start at a higher pay scale.

"This issue had been generally observed in public and private sector organisations. Ms Godby reported that a piece of work/analysis would be carried out by the trust to ensure there was no gender bias (conscious or unconscious) in relation to recruiting to pay scales.

"Other actions would include looking at the recruitment data in more depth, so that the trust fully understood the decision-making process. The Women’s Clinical Network would be engaged and childcare factors considered."

Eighty per cent of the workforce at the trust, which runs Sandwell General and Birmingham City hospitals, are female and Ms Goodby said bosses should "consider how the information might influence how the trust could recruit in the local market".