In April 2001 Denise Kingsmill CBE was commissioned by the government to write a report on women’s employment and pay.  The Terms of Reference for the review were:

“Examine and report on possible non-legislative and cost-effective proposals to deliver improvements to women’s employment prospects and participation in the labour market so that:

  • effective use is made of the skills and experience of both men and women to their benefit and the benefit of businesses and the economy in terms of productivity and competitiveness;
  • the pay gap between men and women is reduced;
  • best practice is developed and promoted; and
  • understanding and awareness of existing equality legislation is increased amongst employers and individuals.

The review will be independent and free from Government constraints.

The report should be made to Ministers by mid-October and presented and published at a conference in December.” (Kingsmill, 2001, p149)

The main source of data for the report were interviews with over 100 senior executives.  The focus of the report was, therefore, from a business case perspective and on the gender pay gap rather than on equal pay.

The main conclusions of the report were that employers lacked information on where gender pay inequality might be generated in their organisations.

The key recommendation was that employers should carry out voluntary gender pay and recruitment audits in the private sector and mandatory audits in the public sector. However, recommendation 10 of the review urged the government to require employers to answer questions on the pay of potential comparators to allow women to decide whether they needed to take an equal pay case to tribunal. This formed the basis of the equal pay questionnaire established by The Equal Pay (Questions and Replies) Order 2003.