The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has launched an investigation into suspected pay discrimination against women at the BBC.
In a statement released on Tuesday, the EHRC said the BBC had voluntarily provided information about its pay policies and practices, following complaints that female employees were not being paid the same as men when they should have been.
It added: “After looking at all of the information, we suspect that some women at the organisation have not received equal pay for equal work.”
The body will examine whether BBC staff experienced unlawful pay discrimination from 1 January 2016 and hopes to conclude the investigation by the end of the year.
It added: “We will look at formal and informal pay complaints raised with the BBC by staff to decide if there has been unlawful pay discrimination against women and whether complaints have been adequately resolved.”
Damian Collins, chairman of the Commons digital, culture, media and sport select committee, said in a statement: “I am pleased that the Equality and Human Rights Commission will now be investigating the matter of equal pay at the BBC.
“The select committee set out its concerns in our recent report on the BBC that they had failed in their obligations to ensure that men and women were being paid equally for work of equal value.
“Having taken evidence from many women at the BBC, the committee is also concerned that there remain a number of outstanding grievance cases with no clear end date in sight for their resolution.
“It is right that the EHRC will not just be reviewing whether there were discriminatory pay policies at the BBC, but also the effectiveness of the system for grievances to be heard fairly.”
Collins said it had been a “very distressing time” for many BBC employees.
In a statement, the BBC said: “Given the public focus on this important issue we understand why the Equalities and Human Rights Commission is looking for assurance on equal pay and we welcome it. It is a logical time to do this as we have gone through a period of significant reform.
“We are confident that the BBC can provide that assurance and indeed go beyond and demonstrate our commitment to be a model for others to follow in this area as a result of our reform programme, although of course we will learn any lessons from the EHRC’s work as we continue to deliver change.
“The EHRC’s terms of reference acknowledge the programme of reforms the BBC has been undertaking. If they had worked with us prior to our reforms, they would have found a very different organisation. Some of the criticism levelled at us over this period was very fair as change was overdue. We believe our pay structures are now fair, transparent to staff and stand very positive comparison with other organisations.”
The corporation said it had “actively encouraged” employees to come forward with questions over pay during the last two years.
“Many of these have been routine queries, and we have now resolved more than 85% of them. We also commissioned independent reviews which did not find systemic issues of pay discrimination but, along with work we’d already been doing, identified improvements to our pay structures which we have been making,” it added.
“As we have already acknowledged, we have some historic equal pay cases. We are profoundly sorry for this. We regret the time it has taken to resolve all of the questions, but some of these are complex and have not been straightforward to resolve. We are determined to make progress on the remaining ones.”