MORE men than women are in the top pay bands at North Yorkshire Police, new figures have shown.

Figures released on Thursday covered all employees of the Chief Constable and showed a median gender pay gap of 20.8 per cent

Deputy Chief Constable, Lisa Winward, said it was "very important to remember that the gender pay gap is not the same as equal pay".

She said: "Men and women are paid the same rates for doing the same job at North Yorkshire Police – that is the law.

"What the gender pay gap figures really highlight is that we have more men than women in higher-paid jobs across the organisation. There can be lots of different reasons for that, so over the coming months we’re going to do a lot more work to understand what really sits behind our gender pay gap figures, so we can make changes where we need to."

The force has appealed to more women to apply to join, and has policies in place to encourage flexible working, maternity support and career breaks, but more will be done to make sure women are not disadvantaged in the recruitment or promotion process.

DCC Winward said: "We already do a lot to encourage women to develop their careers into the higher positions, and the fact that the majority of our Chief Officer Team are women shows we have no glass ceiling. Nevertheless, we don’t have an equal split of men and women in other higher-paid parts of the organisation, which is contributing to our gender pay gap.

"Changing the make-up of an organisation can’t be done overnight, but we are making the gender pay gap part of our regular 'health-check' and we will be working to narrow that gap over the longer-term."