Mind the gap: women earn less

Ministers have been urged to close the pay gap between male and female civil servants.

New research published by the Public and Commercial Services union on Wednesday showed that women working for government offices earned 28 per cent less on average than their male counterparts.

More than half the UK's 500,000 civil servants are women who are twice as likely to be low earners, with average pay of less than £15,000 a year.

The union said it was "shocking" that the government had allowed such a blatant pay inequality to continue.

"Civil service departments should carry out equality audits to identify unfair differences in pay so that inequalities can be rectified," said the union's equality chief Pat Campbell.