Prospect demands action on public sector gender pension gap

Prospect has written to Chief Secretary to the Treasury Laura Trott highlighting the extent of the gender pension gap (GPG) in the public sector and demanding action to address it.

Prospect’s letter pointed out that despite numerous approaches on the issue Treasury officials refuse to engage with it in a meaningful way.

In order to understand Treasury’s approach to this issue, Prospect submitted a Freedom of Information request asking for any analyses or briefing that had been produced about the gender pension gap in public service pension schemes. The responses demonstrated the Treasury’s lack of serious engagement.

For example:

• In June 2021, when discussing a response to a Public Accounts Committee recommendation to be proactive in collecting data on gaps in pensions, an official outlined their plan to reject this “on the basis that this is purely a long-term consequential of differences in pay”.
• In the same exchange, there was an assertion that the “best way to tackle Prospect is through narrowing Prospect pay gap”.
• In February 2022, the following statement was included in a briefing pack provided to the then Chief Secretary to the Treasury, “[gender pension gaps] reflect past differences in earnings over members’ careers rather than differences in their pension terms”. It continued, “The best way to combat differences in pension accrual is therefore by tackling the gender pay gap and promoting equal opportunities for career progression”.
• In April 2023, there was further internal correspondence on this topic and officials said “the pension is gender neutral and pension differences reflect differences in pay”.
• Despite assertions to the contrary it is not in fact solely a pay gap issue. Analysis demonstrates clearly that factors such as caring responsibilities contribute significantly to the gap.

Prospect’s letter from Deputy General Secretary Garry Graham goes on to ask Ms Trott to take action:

In your short time as Minister for Pensions, you took decisive action to unblock a recommendation to publish an official estimate of the overall gender pension gap.

I hope that you will be able to make similar progress on the issue of the gender pension gap in public service pension schemes.

Prospect has specific policy proposals that we think would address this problem. However, we believe it is even more important to simply allow all stakeholders to have a meaningful discussion about these issues.

I would be very grateful if you would ask the relevant Treasury officials to arrange a meeting(s) with the Scheme Advisory Boards, scheme managers and member representatives on this issue.

If the officials responsible for this policy area met with the main stakeholders, there would be a much better chance of all parties reaching a better understanding of the issue, and potentially agreeing to action that would tackle it. At the very least, it would hopefully result in a useful readout for you.