Gender pay gap report 2019-2020

This is the fourth year of reporting our gender pay gap for the Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire police forces (BCH). Legislation requires each of the three forces to report the gender pay gap separately, but we work jointly as a tri-force to identify and address actions to improve equality, diversity and inclusion, in addition to local activity within each force.

Gender representation

	Police officers	Police staff
Female	492	603
Male	1068	356

The breakdown in gender demographics for police officers and police staff shows that we continue to have a higher proportion of female police staff to males. There has been an increase in officer numbers in 2019/20 which has seen a 10% increase in the number of female officers employed in the Force. Although females still represent a lower proportion this increase is a step in the right direction to bridge this gap.

Breakdown of workforce

Police officers

Female	46%
Male	54%

Police staff

Female	59%
Male	41%

Looking at the female and male split at each officer rank, we have seen an consistent increase in the percentage of female Constables in the last three years.

In 2017/18 31.95% of all Constables were female, and this increased to 32.07% in 2018/19 and had increased further in 2019/20 to 46%. Typically, however only one third of females make up the senior rank proportion (Chief Inspector and above) compared to two thirds of males.

 

2018/19 Officer headcount

	Male	Female
Senior ranks	32	10
Inspector	39	17
Sergeant	138	51
Constable	769	361

2019/20 Officer headcount

	Male	Female
Senior ranks	35	10
Inspector	40	15
Sergeant	170	67
Constable	814	397

Senior Officer - promotion progression

Chief Superintendent:

Overall there were 4 female applicants at this rank. This represented 50% of those eligible to apply. We are pleased to say that all 4 applicants were successfully promoted. Of the 2 female superintendents in Cambridgeshire that were eligible to apply there were no applicants from our Force in this year.

Superintendent:

At this rank there were 5 female applicants. This represented 45% of those eligible to apply. 3 of the 5 passed their promotion. There were no Cambridgeshire applicants in the promotions process in this financial year.

Chief Inspector:

There were 21 female applicants. This represented 36% of those eligible to apply. Overall 8 applicants passed of which 2 were successful Cambridgeshire officers. They represented 8% of the Cambridgeshire cohort eligible to apply.

At our Chief Officers levels our female Deputy Chief Constable (DCC Jane Gyford) has remained in post, and since our last reporting a female Assistant Chief Constable (ACC Vicki Evans) has been appointed as well as a female Temporary Chief Superintendent (T/Chief Supt Rebecca Tipping) who now forms part of our Senior Leadership Team. We are pleased to say that this continues the trend of being able to have a positive female representation at the most senior ranks within our Force.

The gender pay gap

• MEDIAN: The mid-point in the range
• MEAN: The whole range expressed as an average

Police Staff and Police Officers combined (includes all staff and officer levels)

• The median gender pay gap is 14.96%
• The mean gender pay gap is 6.88%

Police Staff and Police Officers separated

When we split out the data for staff and officers we can see that this does change our Forces dynamic:

• The median pay gap for police staff is 7.45% and for police officers it is 0%.
• The mean pay gap for staff is 6.49% and for officers it is 2.9 %.

Employee quartiles

Quartile 1

Female	47.46%
Male	52.54%

Quartile 2

Female	52.94%
Male	47.06%

Quartile 3

Female	40.48%
Male	59.52%

Quartile 4

Female	33.02%
Male	66.98%

In this year there are no significant changes in the quartiles breakdowns but they are starting to show a change in our profiling. The key changes are the 6% increase in female Officers in the Q4 profile and that the small increases in the Q1 and Q3 profiles are starting to show an increase in the number of female constables joining Cambridgeshire and an increase in female promotion at the middle ranks.

The bonus gender pay gap

As has been stated before there is not a traditional bonus scheme for the police officer ranks, but there is Home Office national guidance introduced in 2003 that allows Forces to make one-off bonus payments of between £50 and £500 when an officer has carried out work of an outstandingly demanding, unpleasant or important nature. For the Firearms unit, there is also a national agreement for bonus payments to be made as an agreed retention incentive. Though paid as a bonus payment in previous years these are now being paid as a temporary targeted variable payment which has been introduced since 2017. This scheme allows Forces to recognise specialist skills and to assist with retaining officers in these types of roles. For the purpose of reporting they are still included in the gender pay gap figures. The value of these payments in this unit remain higher and can be up to a maximum total of £2,000 per officer annually. The situation remains unchanged that the majority of firearm officers tend to be male, and this continues to affect the bonus gender pay gap data this year.

Police staff are eligible to receive honoraria payments for work that is over and above their normal duties and/or of particular importance or quality and payments require formal sign off to review the reason for such payments.

Staff and officers combined

The median bonus gender pay gap is 0% - The mean bonus gender pay gap is -27.13%.

	Number of recipient	% of males and females who received a bonus	Median payment	Mean payment
Female	124	8.7%	£500	£662.58
Male	51	4.66%	£500	£842.31

Officer bonuses

The officer bonus median pay gap is 90%.

Staff honoraria

The staff honoraria median pay gap is 50%.

Summary and key activities

Cambridgeshire continues with the work already established to achieve a diverse workforce but recognises that there is always more that can be done. Our Corporate Plan 2021/22 and Ethics, Diversity, Equality and Inclusion (EDEI) Statement of Intent aims to create a workforce that is truly representative of the diverse communities we serve and better understand and overcome our barriers to achieve an equal and representative work force at all levels. Future activity that we will be focusing on in the forthcoming years in relation to better representation and fair pay activity include:

• To continue understanding reasons for under representation in certain units and how we can encourage and support more female officers in this teams. Particular areas continue to include: Local Policing, Incident Response, the Dog and Firearms units.Female representation in these areas is a national issue and work continues to support an increase.
• To pilot a development programme specifically aimed at females in underrepresented groups in both officer and staff roles from across Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire forces. This scheme will launch in the first quarter of 2022/23.
• There is the continued recruitment focus on attracting and retaining a more diverse workforce including providing support to those applicants who are under-represented. We have seen an increase in female applications by 15% for the PEQF entry routes and a significant increase for the accelerated detective entry route.
• Through better data collection we will also understand the composition of gender pay in relation to ethnicity and the 9 protected characteristics.
• Work continues to champion female development and progression including activity co-ordinated through the women’s tri-force network including an annual conference in March each year to mark International Women’s day.

For more information

Please contact us via [email protected].