Suffolk Libraries Gender Pay Gap - 2024 report
As an employer with over 250 staff, Suffolk Libraries is required by law to carry out Gender Pay reporting under the Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) regulations 2017.
On 5 April 2024 Suffolk Libraries employed 326 permanent staff: 271 females and 55 males. The gender pay gap between men and women was 11.12% compared with 13.13% in 2023, 13.8% in 2022, 12.3% in 2021, and 15.7% in 2020.
The full details of our Gender Pay Gap reporting are shown below, and the following factors should be considered:
- Female staff represent 83.13 % of the total workforce (last year was 83.71%)
- Staff numbers have increased from 313 last year to 326 this year
- Salary sacrifice schemes reduce the hourly rate paid to a member of staff. Over time more staff have switched to this method, of which 78% are female (an increase on last year)
- As per reporting rules, any staff with unpaid leave are not included
- Most staff on the minimum rate of £11.44 per hour are female and this reduces the mean average amongst female staff as there are fewer male staff overall. The male staff are also predominantly paid at a higher rate due to the nature of their position – largely central office or managerial roles
- The median average shows the middle rate male and female staff is 10.19% which is a decrease on last year.

Aims for the future
Focusing on development opportunities across the organisation and especially on enabling all colleagues to fulfil their potential. For example through apprenticeships, secondments, coaching and mentoring.
Review and develop family-friendly policies to ensure all staff are supported irrespective of gender.
We are also continuing to review our recruitment journey from job posting through to job offer and monitoring job advertisements to ensure that they are gender neutral. Working with our staff, we are also implementing job-specific selection criteria to ensure fairness and inclusivity.

Note: Quartiles are calculated by dividing the workforce into four equal size groups and show the proportion of men (blue) and women (red) in each quartile band, the Lower Pay Quartile being the lowest paid with employees paid at the National Living Wage and the Upper Pay Quartile being the highest paid employees.