Women in Finance Charter

• Commits firms to supporting the progression of women into senior roles in the financial services sector by focusing on the executive pipeline and the mid-tier level.
• Recognises the diversity of the sector and that firms will have different start points – each firm should therefore set its own targets and implement the right strategy for their organisation.

• Requires firms to publicly report on progress to deliver against these internal targets, supporting the transparency and accountability needed to drive change.

We're committed to increasing the representation of women undertaking senior positions within our organisation as we firmly believe that greater diversity strengthens the capabilities of our managers and positively impacts our employees.

As such, our target is that 33% of all senior management positions within OSB Group in the UK will be undertaken by female employees by the end of 2023.

• Jason Elphick, Group Counsel and Company Secretary, has been nominated as the senior executive with responsibility and accountability for gender diversity.

• We'll publish progress annually against our target here on our website.
• We'll ensure the pay of our senior executive team is linked to delivery against our gender diversity target.

When OSB first signed up to the Women in Finance Charter (WIFC) in January 2017, there were 16 female employees undertaking senior management positions out of a population of 67 (23.9%).

Following the combination with CCFS, and the associated doubling of our employee base, the Group’s initial WIFC target of ensuring that by the end of 2020, 30% of UK Senior Management positions were undertaken by women, became a single, group-wide target. 

At the end of 2020, the Group published an increased target that by the end of 2023, 33% of UK Senior Management positions would be undertaken by female employees.

The Group saw significant progress throughout 2021, with the percentage of senior females reaching 34% during the middle of that year. Since that point, our percentage has reduced to 29.95%, with this being impacted by a small number of senior female employees leaving the Group, but primarily as a result of the majority of senior vacancies being filled with male employees, following the majority of our senior vacancies relating to specialist/technical roles where potential candidate bases have been overwhelmingly male dominant and within a challenging, candidate led external recruitment market.

Whilst the Group has and will continue to always make promotion or recruitment decisions based on performance, competence and expertise, we retain an ongoing requirement within our Recruitment and Selection Policy that for all senior management vacancies, at least one suitably qualified female candidate must be subject to face to face interview.

Our Policy also details that before an offer of employment can be progressed, any exceptions to this requirement require Executive approval and also details the need to have a senior female as part of the selection process for all senior recruitment processes in order to minimise any risk of potential unconscious bias and also to reflect a positive gender focussed culture to candidates being interviewed.

In recent months we have enhanced our focus in ensuring broader Committee and Executive awareness of our WIFC progress and will be applying a minimum timeframe for when exception requests can be raised in order to progress offers of employment when a suitably qualified female has not been interviewed for the position. The Group is also in the process of recruiting a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Specialist, whose responsibilities will include the identification and implementation of activities to raise awareness of gender diversity, in turn supporting our ongoing commitment to the WIFC.

Whilst achieving our end of 2023 commitment presents the Group with a genuine challenge, we remain confident that our approach and level of focus are both appropriate and proportionate and will aid the Group in ultimately increasing the percentage of female employees undertaking senior positions.

Separately, and at a Board level, we’re proud to have strong female representation, where 4 of our 9 Board Members (44.4%) are female, as are 25% of our Group Executive Committee.