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An independent statistician using data to understand our world and to predict the future

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Pay Gaps #11 – A median sized problem with 10 solutions from the RSS

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The Royal Statistical Society (RSS) and I have published two articles to help employers better calculate and interpret their gender pay gaps.  The first article lists 10 recommendations to improve the quality of gender pay gap reporting, the second is an article in Significance magazine which explores in more detail, two of the recommendations concerning medians and quartiles.

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UK Weather Tracker #30 – July 2019

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The UK set a new record for maximum temperature of 38.7 degrees in Cambridge on 29th July.  Other than that, the UK weather was unremarkable for the month overall, other than being warmer than normal.  This goes to show that whilst individual days can be remarkable, it is rare that this is sustained.

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Pay Gaps #10 – Should the UK introduce Ethnicity Pay Gap Reporting?

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After two years of mandatory gender pay gap reporting, there is increasing pressure to bring in pay gap reporting for other protected characteristics.  At the moment, ethnicity is receiving the greatest attention and a number of politicians are calling for the introduction of mandatory ethnicity pay gap reporting.

In this post, I will explain why I am opposed to an ethnicity pay gap reporting process which simply replicates the gender pay gap reporting process.  In a future post, I will explore what an ethnicity pay gap reporting process should look like if parliament decides it wants to make this law.

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Stats in the News #3 – Did I change Bath’s Clean Air Zone plans?

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The city of Bath is among a number of cities in the UK tasked with reducing Nitrogen Oxide (NOx) emissions.  NOx pollution is thought to contribute to poor health and the government has required clean air plans from the relevant local authorities to be in place before 2021.  I had no idea that this would result in my statistical expertise being needed to answer a political row over the BathBreathes2021 plans to charge cars driving into Bath and you can read my report to see what my answer was!

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Pay Gaps #9 – How to close your gender pay gap with DMAIC

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So you’ve measured your gender pay gap (correctly I hope!) but you don’t know what to do next?

You are not alone, many employers are still getting their heads around how to interpret their pay gaps and are struggling to work out what it means for them.  One outcome is that many consultants are out there waiting to advise you and among them are statisticians like me.  But what exactly is it that statisticians bring to the party compared to other consultants?  One answer is that statisticians use DMAIC to help organisations improve the quality of their products, services and processes.

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Pay Gaps #8 – My Evidence to the Treasury Select Committee

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On June 5th 2019, I had the privilege of being able to talk to the Treasury Select Committee about the “Effectiveness of Gender Pay Gap Reporting“.  My name was put forward by the Royal Statistical Society and we spent an hour discussing a number of issues with a particular focus on the Finance sector.

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