Supreme Court set for key equal pay disclosure dispute

The UK Supreme Court is due next week (8 July)  to hear an appeal by a council against disclosure of information on equal pay.

South Lanarkshire Council has lost in the lower courts and with the Scottish Information Commissioner in a case brought by Mark Irvine, of the Action 4 Equality campaign group.

Mr Irvine had sought details of the council’s pay scales to try to find out whether male and female employees were paid equally for doing jobs involving equivalent levels of skill.

Some 2,500 council workers could launch an equal pay action if the evidence is found. The council has said that releasing the information would identify individual employees.

In a decision of the Court of Session (Extra Division, Inner House) in March 2012 Lord Marnoch said the court was satisfied that the commissioner “could only have concluded that necessity [to disclose] was made out.

“In particular, he held that the requester's own interest coincided with a widespread public interest in the matter of gender equality and that it was important to achieve transparency on the subject of equal pay. No better means existed to achieve that goal than by releasing the information in question.”