Pondering diversity

We can all agree that financial services firms ought to hire and promote staff without discrimination, as well as provide services that meet the needs of all groups within society. Yet, as we try to get to grips with failures of representation and what success should look like, all sorts of complex questions arise. Julian Sampson contemplates the Financial Conduct Authority’s diversity and inclusion agenda.

Julian Sampson(julian@fulcrumcompliance.com) is director of Fulcrum Compliance (www.fulcrumcompliance.com).

The FCA’s publication in July of discussion paper 21/2 ‘Diversity and inclusion in the financial sector – working together to drive change’ can’t have come as a surprise to anyone. The issue of diversity in financial services has been much trailed, with speeches and letters from FCA senior staff going back at least to September 2018, when Megan Butler (then an executive director of Supervision at the FCA) wrote to Maria Miller MP, chair of the Parliamentary Women and Equalities Committee, to explain the FCA’s approach to sexual harassment in the workplace.