New data has revealed there is a 'significant' pay difference between white people and those from a Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) background working for the the Greater London Authority (GLA) Group.
Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has pledged to tackle pay inequality in the capital following the new findings.
The data shows that while BAME employees are not paid less to do the same job, there is an under-representation of BAME employees in senior roles. This is a similar problem to the one identified through the mayor's gender pay audit, which was published last year.
Mr Khan said: 'I am deeply troubled that members of the Black Asian and minority ethnic community who work at these organisations earn on average less than their white counterparts, and I am determined to confront this inequality.
'This sort of injustice takes many years to develop and it becomes deeply entrenched. My administration is finally beginning the process of turning this around. We are determined to promote fairness for all workers, and remedy any unfair disadvantage against BAME people. Change cannot come soon enough.
'I’m urging all London’s public bodies and businesses to join me in doing what they can to right this injustice and calling on the Government to consider if it is appropriate to legislate to make ethnicity pay audits a legal requirement, as is the case for gender pay reporting.'
The pay data shows that white employees at the GLA earn on average £23.93 per hour while BAME employees earn 16% less at £20.17.
The mayor has taken immediate action to close the ethnic pay gap as all recruitment is now completely anonymised and unconscious bias training is also being rolled out across the organisation.
Deputy mayor for social integration, social mobility and community engagement, Matthew Ryder QC, said: 'The results of the GLA’s first-ever ethnicity pay audit are truly alarming and suggest serious inequality in pay and positions. It is also important to note that ‘BAME’ refers to a number of ethnic groups and the figures can be even more glaring for particular ethnic groups within that definition.'
