Equal Pay Statement
VisitScotland will always seek to recruit and promote the right people to meet its objectives,
and to make use of all the skills and talents available to it from the society in which it
operates and further afield.
VS aims to set pay rates for its staff that are determined by job evaluation, performance,
experience and the internal and external job market and on a basis that is absent from any
bias against or towards any of the protected characteristics.
This does not mean that all staff who do the same or similar job are necessarily always paid
the same salary, but we ensure that an individual’s age, gender, race, sexuality, belief or
disability are not factors that contribute to, or compound, such pay differentials.
VisitScotland uses job evaluation to measure the size of roles in relation to responsibility,
expertise, experience etc. and uses the outcome to determine an employee’s grade, and is
an important factor in determining salary.
Our equal pay objectives are to:
eliminate any unfair, unjust or unlawful practices that impact on
pay
regularly monitor and review the application of policies and
procedures
conduct regular equal pay reviews in terms of gender, disability,
age, race, sexuality or belief
Occupational Segregation
VisitScotland has a gender split amongst its workforce of broadly 34% male, 66% female as
detailed in table 1 below. Females outnumber males at grades 1 to 6 with males marginally
exceeding females at grades 7. Grade 8 (Director level) is currently made up of exclusively
males.
Given the different roles within grades 1 - 6 number in excess of 200 covering Visitor
Services, Marketing, Quality, IT, Finance and HR amongst others, it does not appear that
there is occupational segregation within certain levels of the organisation. VisitScotland is a
popular employer for women and flexible working and enhanced maternity leave benefits
appear to be a factor in this, as they give valuable flexibility to staff caring for young
children, disabled children or elderly parents and family.
It is only at grade 8 (Director level) that there is a noticeable absence of women. The Board
is aware of this statistic and believes that given the proportion of women in the grades
immediately below Director, it will only be a matter of time before the female representation
at this level increases. In order to enable women to gain experience of working at this level,
VisitScotland has already held two mentoring programmes and is about to launch a third,
(they are in fact open to both genders), and through another programme called “Pilotlight”
several of our women managers have benefited working in different environments and in
different cultures.
In terms of average salary by gender, Table 1 also shows the average full time equivalent
pay within each employee grade. A figure above 100% highlights where average female pay
exceeds average male pay. A figure of less than 100% is where average female pay is less
than average male pay.
Table 1
AVERAGE PAY PER GRADE
AND GENDER
Grade
Grade 1
Grade 2
Grade 3
Grade 4
Grade 5
Grade 6
Grade 7
Grade 8
All Staff
Gender
Number
FTE
staff
Headcount
Ratio
F
190
68
40
9
68
21
89
37
68
40
22
16
10
11
0
5
73.6%
26.4%
81.6%
18.4%
76.4%
23.6%
70.6%
29.4%
63.0%
37.0%
57.9%
42.1%
47.6%
52.4%
0.0%
100.0%
£
£
£
£
15,699
13,607
16,834
17,295
£
19,594
£
19,400
£
25,472
£
24,606
£
32,420
£
34,024
£
41,363
£
45,894
£
58,906
£
63,188
M
136.8
51.0
34.8
9.0
66.8
21.1
86.7
38.1
66.2
40.3
21.7
16.0
9.7
11.0
0.0
5.0
F
M
325.08
176.65
342
177
65.9%
34.1%
£26,237
£33,201
M
F
M
F
M
F
M
F
M
F
M
F
M
F
Average FTE
Salary per
Grade
% of average female
pay to average male
pay
115.4%
97.3%
101.0%
103.5%
95.3%
90.1%
93.2%
N/A
£
90,900
N/A
The “All Staff” differential between average male and female pay is a result of the high ratio
of female employees. Were there to be pay parity between the genders in every grade of the
organisation, there would still be a broadly similar difference between male and female
average pay,
We continue to review and monitor pay differentials of greater than 5% within a specific
grade to consider whether there is anything structural with our approach to setting staff pay
that may be a contributing factor.
April 2013