Enhanced accountability? Assessing amendments to gender pay gap reporting in the Employment Rights Act 2025

Patrick, A. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1288-3969 (2026) Enhanced accountability? Assessing amendments to gender pay gap reporting in the Employment Rights Act 2025. King's Law Journal. ISSN 1757-8442 doi: 10.1080/09615768.2026.2705024

Abstract/Summary

In the lead-up to the 2024 election, then Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves pledged that Labour would eliminate the gender pay gap (GPG) ‘once and for all’. Central to this ambition are amendments to the Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017 (‘the GPG Regulations’), which since 2017 have required employers with 250 or more employees to annually report their GPG, bonus pay gap, proportions of men and women receiving bonuses, and gender proportions across pay quartiles. This data was intended to help employers understand the causes of their GPG and, by facilitating public access to the data, incentivise action by employers to address those causes. However, limitations in the GPG Regulations’ design have undermined the impact of reporting. Notably, outsourced workers are excluded from end-users’ reports, allowing employers to benefit from lower-cost labour while obscuring the gendered effects of outsourcing. Moreover, employers are under no obligation to take remedial action based on their reported data. Part 2 of the Employment Rights Act 2025 introduces two key amendments aimed at addressing some of these shortcomings. First, it allows for regulations requiring employers who rely on outsourcing to disclose the identity of their service providers within their GPG reports. Second, it allows for regulations requiring employers to develop and publish equality action plans, setting out concrete steps they are taking to address the GPG and to support employees going through the menopause. This article evaluates the potential of these amendments to enhance employer accountability and reduce pay inequality within workplaces and at the national level. It argues that the transformative potential of these amendments is constrained by several unresolved challenges, in particular employers’ limited capacity and incentive to identify the true causes of GPGs, and the restricted enforcement capacity of the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/id/eprint/130995
Identification Number/DOI	10.1080/09615768.2026.2705024
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Arts, Humanities and Social Science > School of Law
Publisher	Taylor & Francis
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