The new body, Progress Together, was launched at Mansion House, London, today and hosted by Lord Mayor of London Vincent Keaveny with the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, Minister John Glen. The event was attended by Paragon Bank Managing Director of Mortgages Richard Rowntree.
The other founding members of Progress Together include Accenture, Allen and Overy, Aviva, Axa Health, City of London, Corporation, EY, Fidelity International, Man Group, PwC, Santander, and Schroders.
The body launches as a survey of nearly 10,000 people from 50 financial and professional services firms found that employees from non-professional backgrounds are 30% less likely to be working at a senior level compared with colleagues from professional backgrounds (defined by parental occupation at 14).
Progress Together builds on hundreds of hours of roundtables, interviews and extensive research, including an earlier Bridge Group report which showed that 89% of senior roles in financial services are held by people from higher socioeconomic backgrounds (defined by parental occupation at 14) compared with 37% across the UK working population.
The research also revealed that employees from lower socio-economic backgrounds progress 25% slower than peers, with no link to performance and the class pay gap in FPS is £17.5k, the largest by sector
Paragon will collaborate with partners from across the financial services industry so Progress Together can understand how much these findings affect organisational and sector-wide productivity. In turn, this will enable the body to support talented people to progress, regardless of background, and enable the UK to remain a global competitor.
Richard Rowntree, Managing Director, Mortgages, said: “We are thrilled to be launching Progress Together and proud to be one of the 12 founding members. Improving socioeconomic diversity within financial services is an important area for me personally and professionally and creating an even playing field aligns with Paragon’s core values.
“There are too many talented people in the financial services sector that fail to reach senior levels, which is a detriment to the individual firms and the sector as a whole. As an industry, we have to change this.”
Catherine McGuinness, Chair of the Socio-Economic Diversity Taskforce, said: “Progress Together continues the important work of the Government commissioned Socio-Economic Diversity Taskforce. Established in 2020, the independent task force is run by the City of London Corporation and exists to boost productivity and levelling up opportunities.
“The task force conducted hundreds of hours of roundtables and interviews as well as extensive research to identify what steps could help improve socio-economic diversity at senior levels in the sector. The launch of Progress Together will advance our vision of a sector where performance is valued over ‘fit’ and ‘polish’.”
