Equal pay appears to have baffled, stymied and otherwise eluded the grasp of organisations reputed to house the finest minds in the country

They have a total grant allocation from government of over £1 billion, have a better gender balanced workforce than does the NHS or Councils, and have access to some of the best minds in the world.  This year, 5 of Scotland's universities were deemed, by Times Higher Education, worthy enough to be in the top 200 universities in the world.  One can only imagine that equality is not part of the beauty parade organised by Times Higher Education [it is not, I just checked].  With a sector-wide equal pay gap of 18.13%, Scotland's universities are struggling to eliminate the institutional gender discrimination which remains deep-rooted in the sector.

One of the obvious start points in the work needed to close the equal pay gaps in Scotland's university sector, instead of simply reporting it in the prescribed manner, would be to create a single portal where comparable pay gap data could be found for the whole sector. This would not only resolve the many and various issues around the accessibility of pay gap data, but would in turn create an impetus and incentive for those universities with the largest pay gaps to close the gap with the best performing universities. 

Such is the almost universal reluctance across the public sector to make access to equality data easy for members of the public, current university sector practices bear comparison to the impenetrable and byzantine maze encountered when members of the public try to find the best deal for electricity and gas tariffs.

In early 2013, research showed that Scotland's universities were not transparent in reporting pay gap data.  Recent research looks at what has been published since and finds progress, of sorts, in that instead of just 10 out of 17 universities publishing pay gap data, we now have 16 university pay gaps.

In 2013, 2 universities reported pay gaps of less than 5%, whereas this year, just one of Scotland's 17 universities reports a gap of less than 5%.  In this sense, universities are going backwards.

The sector's own central resource on making equality happen, the Equality Challenge Unit, commented in research they published in 2014 : 

Inconsistent approaches to data gathering, analysis and reporting make cross-institutional comparisons of ‘headline’ figures difficult. They can vary quite dramatically, without an explanation of each unique institutional context.

the pay gap across Scottish universities is 18.13%,
meaning women are earning less than men

That said, when aggregating the data published by the universities, the pay gap across Scottish universities is 18.13%, meaning women are earning less than men.  Three years ago, the aggregated pay gap was -5.78%.  Quite an alarming swing, and in the wrong direction.

The biggest Scottish university, in terms of staff numbers and grant funding from government, is Edinburgh University.  Edinburgh is also, according the the Times Higher Education rankings, 24th in the world.  Edinburgh reports a pay gap of 18.12% at 2015, down from the 22.7% reported in 2011. 

One key element absent from the reporting on equal pay gaps by Universities is any acknowledgement and acceptance that their structures, cultures and practices may form part of the institutional discrimination which underpins and contributes to occupational segregation and equal pay gaps.

making equal pay happen remains
something which appears to have
baffled, stymied and otherwise eluded
the grasp of organisations reputed to
house the finest minds in the country.

Having had over 40 years to embrace the work required to deliver equal pay for women, the reality is that for Scotland’s universities making equal pay happen remains something which appears to have baffled, stymied and otherwise eluded the grasp of organisations reputed to house the finest minds in the country.

It is unlikely that with universities left to their own devices, the equal pay gaps will be closed in the lifetime of some women currently working in Scotland’s universities.