Fire chiefs have stated they are in a ‘extremely positive position’ in regards to the ‘important’ issue of the gender pay gap, with more women employed than the previous year.

Figures for Cleveland Fire Brigade for 2019 showed the mean gender pay gap for the whole organisation was £1.02 per hour, with men on average earning £15.07 per hour compared to £14.05 for women.

The gap of 6.8 per cent was significantly lower than the reported national average gender pay gap of 17.3 per cent.

However there was a 0 per cent median gender pay gap within the brigade, with the median hourly rate for both men and women £14.38, a reduction from last year’s four per cent pay gap.

The median is calculated by taking the middle value in a list sorted in ascending order from lowest to highest.

Fire officers also noted they had five more female members of staff compared to the previous year, while there were 31 fewer males employed.

Chief Fire Officer Ian Hayton praised the ongoing work of brigade in this area at the Cleveland Fire Executive Committee.

He said: “There is absolutely no difference whatsoever of the median value between male and female employees, which is a really strong position in relation to this.

“That has improved very much from where we were last year. In terms of the gender issue, we are a very inclusive organisation.

“This is an extremely positive position in relation to the important issue of gender pay gap.

“We continue to work with partnership organisations, benchmarking criteria and identifying best practice to continue to improve that process as we go through the years.”

Coun Luke Frost, Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council representative, also praised the positive work.

He said: “I think one of the positives is even though we’ve had a reduction of males, we’ve also had an increase in female staff.”

Out of the 551 staff at Cleveland Fire Brigade at the time of the reported figures, around 80 per cent were male and 20 per cent female.

While there were more men employed in uniformed wholetime and retained roles, there were more women than men in control and support staff positions.