Talent and skills in financial and professional services

A taskforce to boost socio-economic diversity in UK financial and professional services sector

In order to boost productivity and levelling up opportunities, HM Treasury and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) commissioned the City of London Corporation (CoLC) to lead an independent taskforce. This taskforce intended to improve socio-economic diversity at senior levels in UK financial and professional services. The taskforce had a vision of ‘equity of progression’ – where high performance is valued over ‘fit’ and ‘polish’.     

The taskforce was launched on 24^th November 2020 alongside research authored by the Bridge Group. This research found that almost nine in ten senior roles in financial services are held by people from higher socio-economic backgrounds. This is compared with a third of the UK working population as a whole.

This taskforce aimed to respond to the recommendations laid out in the Bridge Group report (that we need more data, accountable leadership, more role models, to fix processes not people and to work collaboratively). Over 100 organisations across a range of sub sectors and regions were involved in the taskforce. 

The four main outcomes from the Taskforce were:

• Progress Together: a membership body focusing on progression, retention and socio-economic diversity in the financial services sector. Visit the Progress Together Website.
• Data: Collect data on workforce socio-economic diversity, track against levels of seniority and develop an action plan for improvement. We want to create a sector where employees progress according to performance, not background. To do so we need to ensure organisations across the sector are collecting data to understand their starting point and identify the gaps. Read and share our Building the Baseline Report about data collection: Breaking the Class Ceiling report
• Share: Going forward, we want to see the sector working collectively to follow the 5-point pathway in the Breaking the class ceiling report and use the business case report to drive action.
• Champion: Talk about the importance of socio-economic diversity at senior levels wherever you can. Record and promote video stories about senior colleagues from lower socio-economic backgrounds. Share uplifting and inspirational stories of individual progress.

The taskforce was led by; Catherine McGuinness, (City of London Corporation Member), Alderman Vincent Keaveny (Chair of Progress Together and Partner at DLA Piper), Sandra Wallace (Partner and joint Managing Director for UK & Europe at DLA Piper) and Andy Haldane (CEO at Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) and Permanent Secretary to Levelling Up Taskforce), with representatives from HM Treasury and the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy.

Financial Services Skills Commission

The Financial Services Skills Taskforce was launched in June 2018 by the then Chancellor to ensure the sector is prepared to meet long-term skills needs over a period of unprecedented technological and social change. It was chaired by former City Minister Mark Hoban and convened by TheCityUK with support from EY and the City of London Corporation, with the final report delivered in January 2020.

An outcome from the Taskforce is the Financial Skills Services Commission. The Commission’s work is led by its Chief Executive Officer, Claire Tunley, and focuses on the following priorities:

1. reskilling, upskilling and retraining staff while protecting and expanding employment in key regional and national financial centres
2. creating a sector-wide future-skills framework linked to an accreditation programme
3. attracting, motivating and retaining the widest and deepest pool of talent
4. strengthening the purpose and culture of the sector to ensure it remains attractive to existing and future talent.

Professional Business Services Council

We are working with the Professional Business Services Council in collaboration with government departments, to support a programme of research and skills policy development, complementing our input to development of a sector deal. This work focuses on skills gaps and emerging new skills requirements across the UK regions, identifying measures that employers and government can take to transform the skills of the sector’s workforce.

Apprenticeships

Apprenticeship reforms were introduced in April 2017 to increase the quality and quantity of apprenticeships in England. As part of these reforms, the Apprenticeship Levy on employers was introduced. We launched a survey in May 2018 to understand how businesses are using their levy payments and engaging with apprenticeships and what the impact has been, one year since the levy’s implementation. The findings in this apprenticeship report (see bottom of page) reflect the insights gained from 129 responses from Financial and Professional Services firms located in London. These businesses collectively pay over £27.3 million in apprenticeship levy contributions and employ over 329,000 people. The findings are a temperature check of the impact of the Apprenticeship Levy on London’s Financial and Professional Services businesses. You can read the expanded report (see bottom of page) for more details.

Social Mobility 

The Social Mobility Employer Index ranks participating employers on accessing and progressing talent from all backgrounds, and showcases their progress towards improving social mobility. As founding sponsors of the Index, we want to help the Financial and Professional Services sector to increase workforce diversity, track progress and benchmark with peers. This partnership sits under our Social Mobility strategy, launched in 2018.

Social Mobility Commission’s Employer Toolkit

Launched in partnership with the City of London, the Social Mobility Commission’s Employer Toolkit provides practical advice for employers.

Apprenticeships

The processes of taking on an apprentice can seem complex, particularly for small and medium sized businesses, who perhaps lack capacity but are paying the levy and want to use their investment.

To help businesses understand the process, we have designed a series of eight webinars below, to dismantle some of the complexity and simplify the steps involved in taking on an apprentice.

Working in partnership with City HR Association, Investment 2020, and the Acumen@Work, these webinars will help you to navigate apprenticeship processes, take on apprentices and use your Levy payments.

Webinars

• Introduction in Apprenticeships
• Stakeholders Engagement
• The Apprentice Levy
• Apprenticeship practicalities and job matching processes
• Training Providers
• End Point Assessors
• Hiring an apprentice from within your business
• Hiring an apprentice externally

Digital skills

future.now, a coalition led by past Lord Mayor of the City of London, Alderman Peter Estlin, seeks to address the digital skills gap. The coalition, launched on October 10 2019, brings together over 25 organisations such as Lloyds Banking Group, BT, Accenture, Brunswick, Department for Education, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, Good Things Foundation, and Six. This partnership sits under our Digital Skills strategy (see bottom of page), launched in 2018.

We piloted a programme, called CAP Talent, delivering paid work-experience for computer science students at London tech-start-ups. The scheme was delivered by start-up experts Capital Enterprise, and is currently being evaluated.

Progression in the workplace

In partnership with the Government Equalities Office, we convened the financial and professional services sector to map out opportunities for women’s progression in the workplace. The resultant toolkit provides clear guidelines on how to create an inclusive workplace culture through strong participation of women.

We are signatories to the Women in Finance Charter, and in partnership with New Financial and the HM Treasury, we host the annual ceremony at Guildhall.

City development

We work with developers in the City to help them meet a target of 20% local labour on their sites, as required by our Section 106 planning policy.

Attracting diverse talent into Financial Services

In partnership with the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investments, we have provided over 80 places on the Level 2 Fundamentals for Financial Services course. The programme increases the pipeline of diverse candidates into the financial services sector, and is targeted at year 12 students from local schools. Following the qualification, students are offered a place on Investment 2020’s Think Investment’s employability programme.

Our Global Offer

We work with Chartered Bodies to ensure qualifications are transferable overseas, to encourage the flow of talent around the world.