The FCA says it is disappointed it has so far failed to reach its own targets on appointing women and ethnic minority people to senior roles.

The watchdog set a target of 45% of its senior leadership team ‘identifying as female’ by 2020 and 50% by 2025 as part of its commitment to the

Women in Finance charter which over 100 financial providers and organisations have signed up to.

For 2017 the FCA’s senior leadership team is 36% female, which has fallen from 39% in 2016. The regulator also has a mean gender pay of over 19% due to fewer women at senior level and more women at administrator level.

The FCA has set a target of 8% of its senior leadership team identifying as Black Asian Minority Ethnic (BAME) by 2020 and 13% by 2025. As of 31
March 2017, when diversity figures were collated, the FCA’s senior leadership team was 2% BAME which is down from 3% in 2016.

The FCA says that despite the disappointing progress since March 2017, it has been making “better progress” towards its targets and anticipates this will be reflected in the 2018 figures.

The FCA published information on the progress it is making towards its diversity targets today and gave details of its gender pay gap. Under new legislation organisations must publish gender pay gap information on an annual basis.

Using the required legislative calculation, the FCA’s mean gender pay gap is 19.28% and the median gap is 20.91%. This reflects relatively fewer women in more senior technical and managerial roles and the higher proportion of women at administrator level.

The FCA says that this is not an equal pay issue and the FCA’s clear position is that women and men who carry out the same jobs, similar jobs or work of equal value are paid equally.

Christopher Woolard, chair of the FCA’s Executive Diversity Committee 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.

“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.”

The FCA has set out a number of actions it will take to achieve its targets. These include:

• all senior leaders have an objective around the promotion of diversity and inclusion
• senior leaders are focusing on ensuring that diversity and inclusion is considered when allocating work
• expecting hiring managers and agencies to produce balanced shortlists which will give the FCA the best candidates for all roles
• training sessions demonstrating the importance of diversity and inclusion to the organisation. Those taking part will make a commitment to change by taking positive action through their management decisions
• establishing a number of mentoring schemes which include an internal mentoring scheme for women and participation in the 30% Club mentoring scheme and Race for Opportunity Cross Organisational Mentoring Circles

The FCA will report again in 2018 on its progress towards its targets.