Funeral Partners Gender Pay Gap Reports (2023 – 2024)

Equality Act (Gender Pay Gap Reporting) Regulations 2017.

Organisation name: Funeral Partners Ltd
Date of report: 4th April 2025

Relevant period: From 06.04.23 to 05.04.24
Snapshot date: 05.04.24

The Funeral Partners Group (“the Group”) is the UK’s third largest funeral services business and manages over 280 funeral homes across the country. The majority of the Group’s funeral homes have typically kept their original company names following acquisition and becoming part of the Group. The Group has been reporting formally on gender pay levels since 2018 and is pleased to provide its latest Gender Pay Gap annual report.

This latest report This latest report on gender pay from the Group is based on a workforce (designated by the Equality Act as being full-pay relevant employees for Gender Pay Gap Reporting) of 1,021 at the report snapshot date of 05.04.24, of which:

• 523 are male; and
• 498 female.

There is an increase of 15% in the size of the workforce compared to the previous Gender Pay Gap report workforce for the business, a reflection of natural growth within the business and acquisitions completed in the 12-month period since the previous snapshot date. Within the growth in the workforce year on year, this includes an equal increase in the number of male and female employees (15%).

This report highlights the Group’s key perspectives and observations in terms of its gender pay positions and does so with reference to the prior year comparative positions.

Organisation/Company statement

The Group is satisfied with its latest set of gender pay results, which demonstrate overall that the gap in pay and reward metrics between genders is narrowing. This development is in the context of the focus the Group has applied to its pay & reward framework overall, to ensure that the Group is paying its employees fairly.

The Group’s pay structures are intended to ensure that there are minimal gender pay gaps within the Company. We endeavour to reward people fairly and consistently within our processes and reward structure. There are some inherent challenges for the Group in terms of ensuring minimal gender pay gaps are in existence. Most notably this is in terms of the Group inheriting positions when acquiring businesses, when the acquired businesses’ gender pay gap positions may not align with the Group’s overall intended pay structure. As a result, acquisitions may initially create outcomes from a gender pay perspective which are not in line with the Group’s objectives. Such inherited positions are sought to be addressed over a period of time, albeit not in a way to impact adversely upon the wider integration processes of acquired businesses into the Group.

With the continued focus for the Group on its pay and reward framework, it is expected that further improvement in the Group’s gender pay positions will arise in the coming years.

Differences in hourly pay

Differences in hourly pay are measured by comparing both the mean hourly pay rates by gender as well as the median hourly pay rates. As at the latest snapshot date, the gaps in the median and mean hourly pay rates between males and females in the business have narrowed, with the relative level of change arising greater in terms of the median hourly pay rate. This is positive in terms of the development in pay rates for a larger proportion of the workforce in the lower pay quartiles. The latest pay gap positions for each measure are as follows:

Difference between the median hourly rate of pay between male and female employees as at 05.04.24: 3.6% (05.04.23: 4.2%), with the latest reported median hourly rate of pay for males being £14.46, versus £13.94 for females

Difference between the mean hourly rate of pay between male and female employees as at 05.04.24: 13.2 % (05.04.23: 13.8%), with the latest reported mean hourly rate of pay for males being £17.32, versus £15.03 for females

The position whereby the hourly pay rates for male employees in the Group are higher than the rates for female employees is linked to the gender splits by pay quartile:

Pay quartiles – the latest split of genders by pay quartile shows that the lower and upper quartiles are skewed more towards male employees, with the lower middle and upper middle quartiles skewed towards females. This position is linked to Group having a relatively high number of semi-retired males working in operational roles that are in the lower pay quartile, while also having a higher relative number of males employed in managerial positions within the Group.

With more males in the upper pay quartile this contributes to the overall hourly pay rates for males being higher than for females in the Group. The Group is seeking to see a more even distribution by gender in the quartiles, and some progress has been made in this regards, supporting the narrowing of the pay gap between genders in the latest data being reported upon. The splits over the last 3 years of both the genders into quartiles as well as the split of each quartile by gender are shown in the tables below:

Pay review and reward strategy and reducing the Group’s gender pay gap – the Group is in the process of looking to narrow the gap in pay rates between job roles and as such narrow the gap between lower and higher paid roles as part of the Group’s pay review strategy. Pay review plans for 2025 will see the level of pay increase for lower paid roles again being greater than for higher paid roles, to give a more balanced pay framework. With the Group currently seeing more females in lower paid roles, the Group also expects this strategy to help further reduce the gender pay gap in terms of hourly pay rates.

Differences in bonus pay

The difference in bonus pay levels is also measured. The Group has a mixed position in terms of its Bonus pay gap by gender when considering matters from either a median or mean point of view, albeit with males receiving higher average bonuses than females under both measures. The mixed position is that under the median bonus pay gap measure, the gap is much narrower (and comparable in extent to the hourly pay gap), whereas the gap is much wider when measuring the mean position. This differential in the extent of the bonus pay gap is mainly linked to a specific element of the Group’s bonus schemes for a limited number of individuals as set out in the note further below.

The latest positions by each metric are as follows:

Difference between the median bonus pay paid to male employees and that paid to female employees in the 12-month period ending on 05.04.24: 4.8%; (05.04.23: -13.1%)
Difference between the mean bonus pay paid to male employees and that paid to female employees in the 12-month period ending on 05.04.24: 60.4% (05.04.23: 37.6%)

In the prior reporting period (2023), the Group sought to support colleagues in the context of the ‘Cost of Living’ crisis, by awarding a bonus across a large number of employees which was consistent in value irrespective of gender and job role. This reduced the average level of bonuses paid in the year, with these bonuses more evenly spread across teams and genders, and with the vast majority of employees receiving a bonus. No such bonus was paid in 2024, with any discretionary bonus awards made, generally being performance outcome related. This reduced the number of bonuses awarded, and as a result increased the average bonus sum arising. The table below shows for the last 3 years the extent of males and females who have received a bonus in each year:

Note – the mean Male bonus levels are significantly distorted by a separate bonus scheme, linked to the specific nature of the roles of 4 people, and as such distinct to the bonus scheme for the majority of the business. All of the people in the separate scheme are male, and their bonus payments are of a relatively high value. The impact of this is evident by the extent of the differential between the mean gap and median gap with regards to bonus payments.

Declaration

I confirm that the information contained within this report is accurate.

Signed:

Date: 4th April 2025

Name: Andrew Fraser
Position: Chief Financial Officer