WOMEN working for East Lothian Council are paid on average 4.6 per cent less than men.

The latest audit of equal pay within the local authority has said that the average hourly rate for male employees was £15.62 compared to £14.90 for female staff.

It comes as the council has announced that its preferred candidates for four head of service vacancies created by a senior management review are all female.

The average gender pay gap is revealed in the audit report, which also reveals that 72 per cent of East Lothian Council’s workers are female.

However, when it comes to full-time staff, a higher proportion are men.

The audit report revealed that while nearly 42 per cent of women working for the council were in part-time jobs, fewer than 5 per cent of male workers were part-time.

The local authority employs 4,485 employees and the average hourly rate was calculated by ranking all employees by gender from the highest paid to the lowest paid, and taking the hourly wage of the person in the middle.

The internal audit report revealed that women made up the majority of employees on both the lowest and highest pay grade areas, with 74 per cent of the lowest and highest quartile employees female.

It is only in the upper middle quartile, which includes teachers and tradesmen, that the workforce evens out, with men making up 42 per cent of employees.

The audit notes that all craft worker posts, such as joiners and plasterers, are taken by men.

The audit report, which is lodged in the council’s Members Library, finds the discrepancies in pay rates are justifiable.

It adds: “The discrepancies  are justifiable and can be explained as a number

of jobs within the council include payment over and above the basic rate for

the job.

“For example, these can include: payment for higher graded duties/acting up allowance; shift allowance/night shift premium; contractual call out/contractual standby payments; first aid allowance; sleeping-in allowance.”

East Lothian Council recently carried out a review of its senior management team, creating new heads of service post – and all four preferred candidates for the post are female.

The council has named Morag Ferguson, currently Fife Council’s head of legal services, as its new head of corporate support.

It also named Nicola McDowell, Midlothian Council’s schools group manager, as preferred candidate for its new head of education, and Wendy McGuire, from its own housing strategy team, as new head of housing.

Michaela Sullivan, a former CALA group director and assistant chief planner for Scotland, is preferred for the head of development post.