Gender Pay Gap Report 2023
At Knights we are committed to our unique culture, maintaining a ‘one team’ approach based on the principles of fairness, openness and trust. We seek to enable all of our people to fulfil their full potential on an equal footing, supporting flexible working arrangements alongside a belief that we work better when we are together. We are committed to giving our colleagues freedom and choice when determining their career path by facilitating moves between different specialisms, and between client services and business services roles as and when opportunities arise.
We remain unusual in the legal sector, operating within a corporate structure rather than as a partnership. As such, the data within this report incorporates the remuneration of all employees within our business, including those designated as Partners, Directors and Executive Board members (excluding non-executive Board members).
In the 12 months prior to 5 April 2023 (‘Snapshot Date’) we acquired 2 law firms and a specialist planning consultancy and our data set includes all those who joined us within the reporting period, whether through organic recruitment or acquisition, unless specifically noted otherwise.
The information provided in this report therefore clearly captures the full picture at Knights, and the analysis demonstrates the commitment to our principles across all parts of our business.
By law, men and women must receive equal pay for the same or broadly similar work, work rated as equivalent under a job evaluation scheme or work of equal value. We have a clear policy of paying our colleagues equally for the same or equivalent work.
Our median and mean gender pay gaps have reduced since the 2022 report.
Since we started reporting in 2017 we have seen an 11% reduction in our median gender pay gap from a reported pay gap of 45% in 2017 to 34% in 2023. We remain committed ensuring that our colleagues are paid fairly for the work that they do. We remain confident that our gender pay gap does not stem from paying women differently for the same or equivalent value work, rather, it reflects the type of role that our female colleagues predominantly work in.
We are proud of our commitment to fairness and equality to all of our colleagues and we are continuing to make significant progress in eroding historical gender pay gaps arising through restricted access to the legal profession generally; this is demonstrated by the fact that 73% of those promoted in the reporting period were female, and 73% of those promoted to Partner or Senior Associate were Female. We continue to promote on merit rather than tenure or other factors, which has resulted in a greater proportion of promotions for female colleagues as compared to male across the board. Furthermore, we remain committed to being a family friendly employer, matching the pay available for those on maternity leave and shared parental leave, and accommodating a wide variety of flexible working arrangements, with 19% of the workforce working part time in the reporting period.
While it is still the case that a greater proportion of women as compared to men work part time, we seek to ensure there is no impact on salary resulting from working part time hours.
The promotions data does not include data about promotions within firms acquired by Knights prior to the acquisition date as historic data is not gathered except for the award of training contracts, which is included. Nor does promotions data include details regarding any changes to job titles arising as a direct consequence of transferring to Knights and alignment to our title structure or arising due to someone accepting a new role on acquisition. As is clear from the charts below, a greater number of female colleagues have been promoted than male colleagues in both Client Services and Business Services roles.
We take care in ensuring fairness in our review of remuneration across our business. Because our colleagues do not have financial targets, pay increases are awarded based on merit, taking into account the overall contribution made to our business. We continue to reward our colleagues based on merit and feedback from our colleagues has been consistently in favour of salary reviews to reflect performance rather than using set objective criteria or pay grades. Colleagues are invited to raise questions around any decisions about remuneration without fear of reproach, and we pride ourselves on our transparent and even-handed approach to remuneration across our business as a whole.
When acquiring other businesses, we take particular care when reviewing the salaries offered, and we seek to adjust these where appropriate to ensure that colleagues are rewarded appropriately for the work they do, including performance against non-financial measures and taking into account market rates where relevant. This process generally takes place in the 12 months following an acquisition to ensure that a fair assessment can be made.
As a general rule, we do not pay bonuses as we prefer to pay a higher non-discretionary salary. We do however offer an incentive scheme for the introduction of new colleagues to our business, and the increased number of bonuses reflects the success of this scheme.
Overall, inclusive of bonus payments and referral fees earned, 6.52% of all male and 2.75% of all female colleagues received a bonus or referral fee in the reporting period, together representing 4.04% of our workforce as a whole.
1.22% of all male and 0.21% of all female colleagues received a bonus payment in the reporting period, and 5.30% of all male and 2.54% of all female colleagues received a referral fee for the successful introduction of a colleague.
Bonus payments accounted for 0.08% of our total wages and salary costs for the financial year ending 30 April 2023. Bonus payments within the reporting period relate mainly to colleague referral fees, and the buyout of historic bonus arrangements inherited on acquisition. The mean overall bonus pay gap was 45% and the median overall bonus pay gap was 0% (median figures were identical). The mean referral fee pay gap was 27% and the mean bonus pay gap was 43%, both median figures were 0%.
Where a contractual right to a bonus is inherited on acquisition of another business, we usually seek to buy out this right and instead reward those colleagues through a guaranteed salary at a higher level.
DECLARATION
I confirm that the data in this report has been calculated accreting to the requirements of the Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017.
David Beech
CEO, Knights Professional Services Limited