The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has reported a fall in the number of women in its senior leadership roles.
The FCA has released statistics that show the proportion of women in its senior leadership team has fallen from 39 per cent in 2016 to 36 per cent in 2017.
Statistics also show that ethnic minority representation is also down. The FCA senior leadership team currently only has a two per cent ethnic minority representation.
The FCA released its progress of the government’s gender pay gap requirements.
They have set a target of 45 per cent of its senior leadership team identifying as female by 2020 and 50 per cent by 2025 as part of its commitment to the Women in Finance charter.
The FCA is currently reporting a mean gender pay gap of 19.28 per cent.
However, the FCA has said that the drop in representation is not an equal pay issue; it reflects that relatively fewer women are in more senior technical and managerial roles.
The authority has also set out a number of actions that it will take in order to achieve its targets.
These include all senior leaders having an objective around the promotion of diversity; expecting hiring managers and agencies to produce balanced shortlists; training sessions demonstrating the importance of diversity and inclusion; and establishing a number of mentoring schemes.
FCA executive diversity committee chair, Christopher Woolard said, “We are obviously disappointed that the number of people identifying as female and BAME in senior leadership roles fell slightly in the year ending 31 March 2017.”
“However, we are taking positive steps to ensure that we achieve a better balance across the organisation.”
“This includes improving our gender balance throughout the organisation which will help reduce the gender pay gap.”
He continued, “We already know that recruitment to our senior team is beginning to increase the representation of women and BAME colleagues.”
“We have set an ambitious aspiration for greater diversity in the FCA and are determined to meet it.”
