"Lack of sanctions 'makes a mockery' of gender pay gap reports", 28 Feb 2019

Inaccurate figures and a lack of sanctions risk making a “mockery” of the gender pay gap reporting system, critics have warned following an in-depth Guardian analysis of submissions.

Amid concerns that a lack of transparency and inaccurate reporting is undermining efforts to address pay inequality, mathematically impossible gender pay gap data filed by companies for last year has yet to be corrected.

And with less than a month to go before this year’s reporting deadline, the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) admitted that, despite those errors, no companies have yet been fined for failing to comply with legislation...

So far a total of 1,402 companies have reported their gender pay gaps this year, out of 10,000 which are expected to file. Banks have filed some of the most egregious gender pay gap figures...

An EHRC spokesperson said: “It is an employer’s responsibility to ensure that their figures are correct. Our enforcement against data which looked inaccurate or unlikely has found that they were a result of errors, rather than a deliberate attempt to mislead...

[refers to Arriva plc, LK Bennett, Barclays, Lloyds, Royal Bank of Scotland and PricewaterhouseCoopers]