The Cabot Learning Federation (CLF) maintains an unwavering commitment to a diverse workforce which is truly representative of its students and equipped to support their ambitions and life chances.
Strategic goals for the years ahead – set out in Equity Through Education – include a pledge to invest in our people. That means we will continue to recruit, retain, grow and develop the very best people to ensure we deliver an outstanding education for our students. We will seek out thought-seekers, pioneers and benchmark-setters and support them to grow, develop, pursue career progression, and reach their potential.
We take pride in the CLF culture of high inclusion and high engagement, where people feel respected and valued; we want our teams to feel they belong, and are supported to succeed. Our EDI strategy reinforces a CLF-wide ethos which includes a commitment to advancing equal opportunities for all, and eliminating discrimination on any basis.
In an organisation where three quarters of the workforce are female, a commitment to fair treatment of all staff irrespective of gender is clear. It is embodied through the CLF’s transparent recruitment processes, pay policy and professional development opportunities, and anchored in our HEART values.
Direct initiatives to tackle our gender pay gap are aligned with our mission to create equity of opportunity by promoting inclusion, removing disadvantage and rejecting discrimination.
Our 2022 data provides positive indicators of a reduction in the mean gender pay gap, from 21.3% to 20.7%.
We employ a greater proportion of women than men across all quartiles, with women making up 65% of the upper pay quartile and 67% of the CLF’s Executive Team.
In the lower quartile, women account for more than 80% of the population, which in part reflects the nature of these roles and is consistent with wider occupational segregation in society.
The value of this data is in the questions it raises and the subsequent actions we take to further refine our equality and diversity agenda. It is encouraging to see our actions are making a difference, but appreciate there is still more we need to do.
Actions to further reduce the gender pay gap include:
- Having People at the core of our 2030 strategy and promoting the CLF as a great place to work, celebrating diversity and marking occasions like International Women’s Day.
- Having Equality, Diversity and Inclusion as a sub-strategy of our 2030 strategy, of which gender equality is a key component.
- Assessing the gender impact of all new CLF policies and organisational change projects via equality impact assessments. Specifically developing policy and practice that benefits women, for example our menopause guidance and staff network.
- Developing and monitoring our methods to attract and retain women leaders, including succession planning to identify talented female colleagues and encouraging uptake of development and progression opportunities.
- Reviewing our attraction and selection processes to increase the number of men throughout the organisation.
- Promoting flexible working in our leadership roles by offering part-time working where possible, exploring the option of job-share and supporting women returning from maternity leave through a range of flexible options.
- Continuing to review the pay of our lowest paid staff to ensure they are paid a fair wage and to complete the work on job evaluation to ensure all our professional roles and structures are well designed with parity across the Trust.