Solo Support Services Gender Pay Gap Results for 2019

Solo Support Services Ltd has published its Gender Pay Gap report for the first time as required by government regulations introduced in 2017*

At Solo, the median hourly rate for women is 0.5% higher than men, this compares favourably to the gender pay gap of 8.9% in favour of men, published by the Office for National Statistics. The mean hourly rate is 6.5% higher for women than for men, again, bucking the national trend.

The company’s results are unsurprising. Women make up the whole head office team including senior management positions. A total of 82% of the company’s staff, at the snapshot taken 5th April 2019, were female, compared to 18% of men. This is often true within the organisations across the Health and Social Care sector as well as for unpaid carers, the number of women vs men in comparable roles are largely higher in favour of women.

The company operate an Equal Opportunities policy; however, clients do occasionally request that we claim an exemption under the Equality Act 2010 when the role involves personal care and therefore a male or female carer is preferred by the client.

For Solo Support Services care and support staff, the rates of pay are determined as part of the individual client budget approval, which is the responsibility of the respective funding body, either a Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), NHS trust or Local Authority Social Services. Therefore, rates of pay for comparable roles within the individual care packages are the same, but may differ between packages commissioned by different funding bodies.

* Under UK government regulations introduced in April 2017, companies with over 250 employees hare required to make and publish six calculations, including gender pay gap as a mean and median, the mean and median bonus gap and the proportion of males and females divided in to four groups from lowest to highest pay.