Kent bosses have denounced a "damaging new burden" of gender pay audits on larger employers.

Equalities Minister Harriet Harman has proposed the move amid concerns that some organisations pay more to men than women employees for equivalent work.

But Kent Institute of Directors argues that while most firms take salary parity seriously, now is not the time to enforce unnecessary regulation when they already battling recession and facing financial and other pressures.

The Kent branch of the Institute of Directors (IoD), which represents the county’s business leaders, called the Government’s Equality Bill a potentially damaging new burden.

It will apply to businesses employing 250 or more employees and public sector bodies with more than 150.

The IoD has long campaigned for the Government to reconsider its plans to introduce any form of statutory disclosure of gender pay disparities and believed it had won the argument.

Frazer Thompson, chairman of Kent IoD, said; "This is a further example of unnecessary regulation at a time when many companies are struggling to survive.

"Having received written assurances from Ms Harman’s department that they had, and I quote; ‘ruled out mandatory gender pay audits,’ we at the IoD are very disappointed to hear reports that this might now be going ahead."

He added: "Directors take the equality agenda extremely seriously and would have been happy to co-operate with a number of more constructive measures, but this is a retrograde step that will do little to tackle the discrimination problem."