1. Introduction
This David MacBrayne Group Gender Pay Gap Report reviews gender pay gaps in each subsidiary and sets out the Group’s aim, which is to provide equal pay for work of equal value and ensure that pay systems and processes are objective and free from bias.
The Report responds to the CalMac Ferries Limited statutory obligation to report pay gaps in terms of the Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017 (the Regulations), with the last statutory report published in April 2022
In the interests of full transparency, this Report also provides additional information on pay gaps in Group subsidiaries, which have less than 250 members of staff, or are situated out with the jurisdiction of the Regulations.
A Technical Note is supplied as an Appendix which provides guidance on how the data has been analysed and definitions of terminology used.
2. Executive Summary
We are pleased that for the second successive year, we are reporting a Gender Pay Gap favourable to females for our shore-based workforce, which comprises employees working at ports across our network and within our support services functions. We are also very encouraged by the 50:50 male-female gender balance in our Executive Management Team We hope that these positive indicators encourage current and prospective employees to regard us as an inclusive employer where opportunities for promotion and career progression are open to all.
While we continue our commitment to equal pay for work of equal value across all areas of our organisation, a challenge remains to narrow the pay gap in our seafaring population where occupational segregation continues to drive a pay gap favourable to men, albeit that the gap is below both national and industry norms.
We are not complacent. We continue to drive initiatives in support of attracting and retaining more females into roles traditionally viewed as “male” and creating a working environment that is inclusive and welcoming to all, where barriers to career progression are identified and addressed.
We continue our work with schools and with Equate Scotland to attract more females through our industry leading modern apprenticeship programmes. Menopause support and guidance, enhanced Employee Assistance provision and an Agile Working Policy are contributing to removing barriers for females progressing their careers in the organisation. In addition, this year we are exploring further how we better support women in the workplace through an “Inclusive Females” focus group programme, led by one of our female directors This is already identifying further areas for us to focus our efforts on in the coming year.
3. Industry Context
Occupational segregation (which can be defined as the concentration of men and women in different kinds of jobs) is a particular issue for the transport and sea faring industry.
Sea faring has historically been a male-dominated industry and that tradition runs long and deep. Recently published statistics from the Department of Transport show there were an estimated 21,970 UK nationals active at sea in 2021. Around half of the total active seafarers were Officers The majority of UK seafarers active at sea were male (82%), with most female seafarers working as Uncertificated Officers or as Ratings.
While 12% of our seagoing workforce are female, according to the latest BIMCO/ICS 2021 Seafarer Workforce Report, women represent only 1.2% of the global seafarer workforce with an estimated 24,059 women serving as seafarers. This is a relatively small number with female ratings predominantly working in the cruise ship and passenger ferry sectors. While female officer numbers are spread more evenly across the sectors. The International Maritime Organization are supporting a number of initiatives aimed at improving the gender balance.
We recognise the significant challenge we face in our sector to attract and retain females into seagoing roles and are therefore focusing on creating a diverse and inclusive workplace, removing where possible any barriers to females entering the sector and progressing their careers to the more senior ranks
In order to progress this aspiration over the past year, we have delivered the following initiatives:
• An “inclusive females” subgroup of our “inclusive CalMac” group, led by one of our female executive directors, has held a series of focus groups with female colleagues from across our organisation. The aim of the focus groups was to better understand the experiences and challenges faced by our female colleagues working in maritime and to understand how we can become more inclusive for all. Some actions emerging from this exercise are already being addressed, with further engagement and actions planned in the coming year.
• Targeted marketing and communications during Scottish Modern Apprenticeship Week and International Women’s Day to promote CalMac as an inclusive employer and to inspire young females to see CalMac and maritime as a career choice for everyone
• Connecting with Secondary Schools to encourage under-represented groups of people to apply to our Modern Apprenticeship Schemes
• Amending outdated job titles that are specific to male roles such as “motormen” and “nightwatchmen”
• Working with Equate Scotland (Napier University) to deliver Unconscious Bias and Positive Recruitment training to the full team involved in the recruitment
of Modern Apprentices into Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths roles.
We are also encouraged that from our first intake of modern apprentices in 2013/14, where we had no female candidates, this has risen to 35% female candidates in our 2022/23 intake
4. Wellbeing Focus
Supporting the wellbeing of our staff continues to be a strategic focus. The strategy aims to help employees achieve their best overall wellness and raise awareness of all initiatives and support available to ensure employees feel valued, engaged and more resilient. It is anticipated that these positive initiatives will have a direct impact on attendance, performance, and overall morale in the workplace. Some of the work we are doing as part of our wellbeing focus will contribute to the creation of a positive working environment for females and includes:
Menopause Guidance:
Most women will go through the menopause transition during their working lives –and for every ten women experiencing menopausal symptoms, six say it has a negative impact on their work. In a survey of 1,000 adults in the UK, the British Menopause Society found that 45% of women felt that menopausal symptoms had a negative impact on their work and 47% who needed to take a day off work due to menopause symptoms say they wouldn't tell their employer the real reason.
As part of our Wellbeing strategy, we are in the process of introducing a guide for Managers to help manage menopause. This will include guidance on how to support employees through menopause and action plans for making adjustments to working practices for employees.
Employee Assistance Programme:
We also launched a new Employee Assistance Programme (EAP), designed to help improve health and wellbeing in both personal and professional life. We have teamed up with Health Assured to offer all colleagues this enhanced EAP, which includes access to the UKs leading wellbeing app, My Healthy Advantage.
The app is a confidential resource designed to support the employees’ overall wellbeing - with features including mood trackers, helpful videos, 24/7 support services, 4-week programmes, reminders and active challenges and a wellbeing calendar of events and offers through the provider.
Employees will also have access to a wellbeing portal, where they can get telephone support and they can download an app onto their personal or company devices.
Agile Working:
Agile working removes boundaries to where, when, and how we work. Our approach offers individuals and teams, who are able to work flexibly within their roles, the opportunity to work from the office, home, or any location in our network.
It is designed to meet both the needs of the business and the preferences of our people: offering the best balance of everything the office, working remotely from home, and travelling the network can bring.
5. Group Overview
Figure 1 details the headcount for the David MacBrayne Group employer subsidiaries at the snapshot date. Six members of staff who are the sole employees of David MacBrayne Limited have not been included. There has been no significant change in headcount since last reported.
Figure 1: Group Subsidiaries, Employee Headcount and Gender
Subsidiaries of the David MacBrayne Group Headcount Male Female Caledonian MacBrayne Crewing (Guernsey) Limited 1084 88% 12% CalMac Ferries Ltd 679 62% 38% David MacBrayne Limited HR
Figure 2 below details the Group headcount split of these subsidiaries by Seagoing (Caledonian MacBrayne Crewing, Guernsey) and Shorebased staff (CalMac Ferries and David MacBrayne HR).
Figure 2: Group Headcount Split, Employee Headcount and Gender
6. Pay Gaps Across Group
Figure 3 shows the median pay gaps across the Group and compares them against external indicators.
With the exception of CalMac Ferries Limited, where the gap favours women, none of the gender pay gaps in the group’s subsidiaries exceed the external indicators.
David MacBrayne HR (UK) Limited is a human resource subsidiary which supports CalMac Ferries Limited. The median pay gap here is 1.04% which is significantly lower than the external benchmarks
Crewing (Guernsey) Limited, is the subsidiary with the highest gap and the lowest proportion of female staff. The gap here is still lower than the external benchmark.
Figure 5 shows the mean and median pay gap in hourly wages and shows that the median pay gap is lower than the mean
David
External Benchmarks and Subsidiary Median Pay Gaps
CalMac
CalMac
Gap Favours Men Gap Favours Women
Gender pay information for each subsidiary is considered separately below.
This is the largest subsidiary company in terms of headcount Figure 4 shows that 12.27% of staff are female. While this has been a marginal increase on last year’s total of 11.63% of female staff, we acknowledge that we must work at increasing our female seagoing population.
There has been no change in the median and a slight increase in the mean gap from 2021.
Guidance from the Equality and Human Rights Commission deems any pay gap in excess of 5% as significant and worthy of further investigation Looking at the raw data, it is evident that pay arrangements are based on equal pay for work of equal value – each distinct role has a fixed salary and there are no deviations from this. All female staff who are performing the same role as their male colleagues are receiving identical pay.
It is suggested that the gap is attributable to societal issues of occupational segregation, and reflects the fact that the seafaring industry is often perceived as a “male” occupation. It is also noted that women are more likely to be responsible for child care, and this may act as a deterrent to choosing a career which may involve working away from home for relatively prolonged periods. The David MacBrayne Group will continue to engage in outreach activities to encourage women into the industry.
CalMac Crewing Guersney Limited Pay Quartiles
The pay quartile analysis shows Quartile 1 (lower paid quartile) contains the highest proportion of female staff. There have been no significant changes since last reported Parity of pay on a role-based perspective is evident, which suggests that the dominance of male employees in the higher quartiles may be related to external societal issues including the prevalence of occupational stereotypes within the seafaring industry.
Figure 7 below shows the median and mean bonus pay gap at Crewing (Guernsey) Limited. It is very similar to the overall pay gap as staff customarily receive the same annual bonus which is calculated as a percentage of salary All staff who were employed at the date of bonus payments received bonuses.
8. CalMac Ferries Limited
This is the second largest subsidiary company in terms of headcount Figure 8 shows that 38.14 % of staff are female, which is a slight increase since last reported.
Figure 9 shows that the CalMac Ferries Limited mean pay gap is lower than the Scottish and UK gaps, which increased year on year.
The mean gap has decreased by 0.91 percentage points (pp) While the annual change is incremental, there has been consistent progress in decreasing the gap since the emergence of the Gender Pay Gap Reporting Regulations.
This is the second year since reporting began that the median pay gap favours women. The median is the point which separates the higher and lower values, and usually this mid-point of pay is the same for male and female staff at CalMac.
The pay quartiles information produced in Figure 10 shows the greatest level of gender balance in the Quartile 3 (the third highest paid quartile). There has been a slight increase in the proportion of female staff in the highest paid quartiles which may be associated with the slight decrease in the gender pay gap.
Figure 11 shows the median and mean bonus pay gap for male and female staff. 80.69% of female staff and 79.05% of male staff received a bonus. The variation in the proportion of staff receiving bonuses is due to the difference in the snapshot date and the date on which bonuses are paid. The size and distribution of the bonus gaps are similar to pay gaps.
The median bonus gap favours women and is higher than the pay gap. Again, it is a tight cluster of pay points, and the snapshot pay date is different to the date on which the bonus is paid, which is why there are differentials.
The number of employees in this subsidiary company is significantly less than the statutory minimum. Nevertheless, in order to enhance transparency and to better understand the David MacBrayne Group as a whole, gender data is presented below. Given the relatively small numbers involved, it will only be meaningful to look at staff as a whole as opposed to reviewing composition of quartiles (the inclusion of which could lead to the identification of individual members of staff).
David MacBrayne HR (UK) Limited has the smallest number of staff and has had the proportionately highest increase in headcount of approximately 17%. Such comparatively small numbers can be sensitive to changes in pay gaps.
Figure 12 shows a lower proportion of male staff (17.14%). The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development report that approximately 70% of people who work in Human Resources are female. The national predominance of females in this profession is thought to be related to the perception of HR being a profession more for women than for men.
Figure 13 shows that the mean gap favours women, however the median gap now favours men (1.04%). Looking at data, there has been an increase in female employees in the lower quartiles which will take the median gap down.
vertically in occupations across the David MacBrayne Group by removing incidents of stereotyping about skill and capabilities, by changing the culture associated with different jobs, removing barriers to accessing training courses and apprenticeships and promoting a healthy work-life balance.
Our overall aim is to achieve equal pay in employment for men and women, people who are disabled and people who are not, and people who fall into a minority racial group and people who do not. In support of this aim and our commitment to equality, we will:
• Work in partnership with trade union representatives;
• Monitor the pay system to ensure it is open, transparent, fair and equitable;
• Communicate our policy on equal pay effectively to managers and all members of staff;
• Respond promptly to any complaints in relation to equal pay; and
• Regularly assess and monitor the impact of our pay practices, taking remedial action as appropriate.
We will continue to actively consult with Trade Unions on all employment matters including equalities, will report annually on our progress and review our Equal Pay Statement every four years.
Our Executive Team is responsible for implementing, monitoring and reviewing the operation of this Equal Pay Statement and ensuring that due consideration is given to the resources required to achieve equal pay.
I confirm that the information contained within this Report is accurate.
Christine Roberts, Group HR Director, David MacBrayne GroupWe support the principle of equal opportunities in employment and believe that staff should receive equal pay for work of equal value regardless of their sex, race or disability.
We understand that equal pay is a legal right under both domestic and European Law.
We recognise that in order to achieve equal pay we must have a pay, grading and benefits structure that is transparent, flexible, based on objective criteria and free from bias.
We understand that to deliver equal pay for our employees it is also necessary to consider all of the causes of the pay gap and that these go beyond discrimination within pay systems. We recognise that our training and employment practices can impact on people as a result of their sex, race or disability in different ways. In particular we are committed to tackling gender-segregation both horizontally and
