For the second year, we’ve combined our ethnicity pay gap and our gender pay figures to produce a diversity pay gap report. By doing so, we hold ourselves accountable for the targets we set ourselves each year to achieve race and gender equality.
Transparency on ethnicity pay
We choose to report on ethnicity pay to demonstrate our commitment to diversity and inclusion within our organisation. We’re pleased to report that the pay gap has decreased over the year from 23.15 per cent in 2020 to 15.60 per cent in 2021, but recognise there’s still a long way to go.
Our retention rate is high, but as a consequence, we’ve only been able to increase ethnic minority representation slightly at all levels. Although progress is slower than anticipated, we know that we’re moving in the right direction.
Ethnic minority employees are underrepresented in business areas that command higher pay and bonuses, such as investment, risk and IT. That’s why we’ve set targets to increase representation within senior management roles and across the organisation by December 2023. We also remain committed to the Race at Work Charter and its five key principles.
Female representation
We’re now into our fifth year of reporting on gender pay. There are still clear imbalances but we’re doing all we can to support change.
It’s encouraging that our Board and Executive Committee (ExCo) have a 50/50 split of male and female decision-makers, including increased representation from ethnic minorities.
As outlined in our diversity and inclusion (D&I) strategy, we’re nurturing our future female leaders through mentoring, coaching and internal development programmes. We continue to hire more women at junior levels to build our talent pipeline for the future.