Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate his Department has made of the gender pay gap in the higher education sector.

The transparency created through reporting, is crucial to accelerating progress to close the gender pay gap. The data on the gender pay gap in the higher education sector can be found at: https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/datasets/annualsurveyofhoursandearningsashegenderpaygaptables.

From 2018, the OfS will require registered providers to disclose the relationship between the remuneration of the head of the provider and that of all other employees, expressed as a pay multiple. It will also require providers to publish the number of their staff paid more than £100,000 per annum, the total remuneration package of the head of the provider, and a justification for this remuneration package.

The Higher Education Funding Council for England, which preceded the OfS, commissioned a project that aims to equalise the gender balance and ethnic diversity of higher education governing bodies. This work will include establishing an online exchange to recruit board members.