Ethnicity pay gap report

What is an ethnicity pay gap?
The ethnicity pay gap, not to be confused with the issue of equal pay, shows the difference in the average hourly rate of pay between Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) and non-BAME employees in an organisation, expressed as a percentage of average non-BAME earnings. This is calculated using the same calculation methodology as for gender pay gap reporting.

As with our gender pay gap reporting, our narrative report also includes two important voluntary calculations: an equity partner earnings gap, and a total earnings gap which reflects the earnings of both employees and equity partners.

What are we doing to close the gap?
Our ethnicity pay gap is primarily driven by a lack of BAME representation at senior grades. While BAME made up 22% of our people in April 2018, it only accounted for 5% of our partners and 10% of our directors.

Since 2017 we have had a dedicated BAME action plan to address this imbalance. The plan comprises a number of targeted actions – including widening of our student recruitment efforts, monitoring our pipeline of future BAME leaders, reviewing all promotion and reward decisions from an ethnicity perspective, establishing a BAME Advisory Council to feed into the firm’s strategy, and identifying development opportunities both within and outside of the firm (including through external mentoring programmes). This is coupled with our continued focus on ensuring that we provide a truly inclusive culture, underpinned at all times by respect.

Emma Codd, Managing Partner for Talent concludes:

We know there is a lot more to do and we believe that our action plan, agreed by our firm’s Executive in 2017, will ensure we make meaningful progress. In line with the Parker Review we have introduced clear targets for representation at the most senior levels of our business and are working hard to meet these. This means focusing on those parts of our career lifecycle where action is most needed and, of course, to continue to ensure that our culture is always inclusive and underpinned by respect.