Council facing more than 1,000 equal pay claims
Getty ImagesMore than 1,000 unresolved equal pay claims have raised concerns about the financial risks facing Brighton and Hove City Council.
External auditor Grant Thornton said 1,063 claims had been lodged in a report to the authority's Audit, Standards and General Purposes Committee.
The council said any potential liability is currently "unquantifiable", although officials are aware equal pay settlements at Birmingham City Council exceeded £250m.
The authority said it believes the claims are "defensible" and has taken King's Counsel advice while commissioning external legal support to assess risks.
The claims date back to June 2023, when the GMB union accused the council of paying women less than men to do equivalent jobs.
The union announced it was lodging an equal pay claim.
Finance chief Elizabeth Griffiths told the committee there is no estimate of potential costs as the council prepares to contest the cases.
The report said the legal process could take at least two years to resolve.
The council said it operates a job evaluation scheme and keeps its pay and allowances structure under review.
It added it had also sought Kings Counsel advice.
Figures in the report show the council's gender pay gap is negative, at -7.9%, with women earning more on average than men.
The mean hourly rate for male employees in 2025-26 is £19.05 compared with £20.56 for female employees.
Median hourly pay stands at £17.49 for men and £18.68 for women.
Equal pay claims differ from the gender pay gap.
The gender pay gap measures average earnings across the workforce, while equal pay claims focus on whether men and women are paid the same for doing work of equal value.
Women make up nearly two-thirds of the council's workforce of about 5,000 employees, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
