Executive Summary - Kia Toipoto (Pay gap) report and Diversity and Inclusion plan
This is a summary of the first pay gap, diversity and inclusion action plan for Whaikaha – Ministry of Disabled People. You can find the full document on our pay gap report and Diversity and Inclusion plan page.
Introduction
This is a summary of the first pay gap, diversity and inclusion action plan for Whaikaha – Ministry of Disabled People.
The document combines our pay gap report for Whaikaha with our diversity and inclusion action plan, mapped to Te Kawa Mataaho - Public Service Commission’s Kia Toipoto and Papa Pounamu public service goals for this period.
More information about Kia Toipoto and Papa Pounamu can be found at the following websites Kia Toipoto external URL and Papa Pounamu external URL , noting that these websites may not contain resources in alternate formats.
The Kia Toipoto plan 2021-24 focuses on closing gender, Māori, Pacific and Ethnic pay gaps. Everyone has the right to be paid fairly. Pay gaps can indicate where a particular group may be treated unequally. It's important that we remove bias and discrimination so that everyone is paid fairly for the work they do.
Given we are a new organisation participating for the first time, our action plan outlines our planned activities to establish good pay and diversity and inclusion practices.
Our people
The data used to prepare the report was drawn on 1 September 2023, given our organisational structure confirmed on 01 August. In future years, we will draw data at the end of our financial year (30 June).
Our permanent and fixed term employee headcount was 194 at 1 September 2023.
Our workforce profile tells us that 70% of our workforce are women.
We are 78.3% European, 19.0% Māori, 8.3% Asian and 7.2% Pacific people. 2.8% of us are Middle Eastern, Latin American or African. Note that as our people may select multiple ethnicities, percentages will exceed 100%.
For disability status, we have used the self-identified status of 68 of our employees and removed from the calculation the 31 employees who chose not to identify their disability status, rather than making assumptions about those with an unknown status. This is consistent with the Kia Toipoto guidance used for the reporting of ethnicity. We will encourage our people to update their details so that we can make a more accurate comparison in future.
Our pay gaps
To report on our pay gaps in a statistically robust way, Kia Toipoto guidance requires comparator groups of twenty people or more. This means that this year we can report our gender, Māori and disability pay gaps.
- Our gender pay gap is 10.2%, compared to a public service pay gap in 2022 of 7.7%.
- For our Māori employees, our average pay gap of 4.9% is lower than the 6.5% public service average.
- Our pay gap for disabled people is 8.1%. There is no public service comparison information available this year.
Our pay gaps tell us that we have work to do, to analyse, understand and correct any pay gaps that cannot be reasonably explained.
Whaikaha has some unique remuneration issues to work through given how the Ministry was established in 2022, when teams from different agencies were brought together on separate terms and conditions. We expect these legacy arrangements may, in some instances, be distorting our view of pay gaps, with further, detailed analysis required to establish all causes.
Carrying out this analysis and starting work on a common remuneration framework for Whaikaha are the key priorities for our pay gap action plan. The remuneration work is complex and may take up to 24 months to complete and fully implement through bargaining etc. Fairness and equity will be key factors in establishing the framework.
During 2023-2024 our Remuneration Working Group will provide a key forum for discussions with our people and the Public Service Association (PSA) about our pay gap action plan and remuneration framework. This mechanism honours our intent to work with our people and the PSA on pay gap issues.
Our Executive leadership team is committed to reducing pay gaps and delivering this plan. The Deputy Chief Executive People and Culture is the sponsor for this plan and has specific responsibility for ensuring its implementation.