Corporate report

Annual review: March 2023 to March 2024

Updated 13 November 2024

Foreword 

To deliver our Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Strategy 2020 to 2024 we have published detailed annual action plans and in March 2023 we published our approach to the delivery of the last 2 years of our strategy and our focus areas. 

We engaged with colleagues across the organisation to look at how we can improve the experience of everyone working at the CMA and have developed 5 thematic areas where we can make real and meaningful impact. 

• Recruitment and growing our own 
• Improving representation 
• Career development 
• Pay and reward 
• Culture of inclusivity 

We have reviewed and implemented a new governance structure that enables us to hold ourselves to account on our action plans at the most senior level in the organisation, as well as establishing an effective and highly motivated delivery group that are enabling us to deliver our action plan. These are colleagues from across both operational and HR teams in the organisation as well as colleagues represented by our colleague networks. 

We have created a broad set of measures of how we track and measure our progress both in terms of how representative we are as an organisation, but also how inclusive we are.   

As we look ahead to the development of our 2025 to 2030 strategy, much of the work that we will have delivered in 2023 to 2024 will form critical foundations with which to build on to develop our new strategy. We will continue to adopt the following principles: 

• we are insight led and evidence based
• we design interventions and actions through an understanding of lived experiences 
• our plans have longevity for us to build on our progress and embed changes in the organisation
• we will focus on building organisational capability to ensure that leaders and colleagues have the knowledge, skills and behaviours to create and sustain a diverse and inclusive culture

Executive Summary 

In March 2023 we published our annual review of our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy 2020 to 2024 and published our 2023 to 2024 action plan. These were developed together with our staff networks, our senior executive team and senior diversity champions, the wellbeing, inclusion, diversity and equality steering group and staff representatives. 

To simplify our approach, we combined our remaining actions from the race action plan and our disability action plan into one plan, enabling us to track, measure and report our progress more easily. 

Together, they set out our strategic and operational objectives to create and sustain a diverse and inclusive organisation. 

The core strategic objectives were and remain as: 

• building a diverse and inclusive workforce that reflects and understands the public we serve
• ensuring all our colleagues are valued and can contribute to our success
• empowering and enabling all colleagues to thrive and prosper

Our highlights include developing a holistic set of measures that enables us to hold senior leaders accountable for the progress on inclusion, representation and closing our pay gaps. We will develop a refreshed leadership framework, which includes our expectations for leaders as well as how they are supported to create a diverse and inclusive organisation. 

In recruitment we ensure that we have diverse shortlists and interview panels, removing barriers for candidates and therefore improving the diversity of our pipelines. We have also reviewed our existing development programmes to support the development of high potential talent, including introducing a sponsorship model to support talent. 

We have made progress in ensuring our pay and reward processes are fair and equitable, and we are working with an external partner to review our performance management frameworks.   

We also have a detailed understanding of where we are under-represented, particularly at a senior level and are developing clear actions to address this. 

We remain focussed on delivering our existing plan in 2024, reviewing the impact and effectiveness of the plan and shaping our priorities and strategy for 2025 to 2029. 

Progress and achievements from March 2023 to March 2024 

Our 2023 to 2024 action plan enables the delivery of the three strategic diversity and inclusion objectives. 

It sets out our approach to equality, diversity, and inclusion at the CMA, ensuring that we have identified the right strategic objectives, supported by key actions that will enable us to deliver lasting change. 

Against each of our three strategic objectives outlined below, we have set out our progress that we have made and our focus for 2024. 

Strategic objective 1 - To build a diverse and inclusive workforce that reflects and understands the public we serve

Summary: We seek to build a truly diverse and inclusive organisation that reflects the wider UK population and consumers we serve. Diversity brings different insights, creates challenge and encourages change and innovation. 

In 2022 we set out the following actions: 

a) focus on removing barriers for diverse talent and be smarter and more transparent with our diversity and recruitment data

Progress: In addition to our Diversity Dashboard, we have created a Recruitment Dashboard to track a candidate’s journey and to understand where there may be inequitable outcomes. To remove barriers at interview, we have implemented diverse shortlists and diverse interview panels. We are using this data to help us to widen our access to talent at all stages of the process. We have also continued to improve declaration rates for all characteristics. 

2024 focus: We will continue to use our data to inform action and ensure that we are accessing the widest talent pools. We have commenced a review of our end-to-end recruitment process to continue to remove barriers for candidates. 

b) Improve diversity of SCS leadership 

Progress: We have improved our diversity of our leadership population, where 47.9% of SCS are women, 6.4% of SCS are from an ethnic minority background, leaders with a disability make up 4.3% of our SCS population and 6.4% of SCS are part of the LGBTQ+ community.  

We have reviewed our existing development programmes to support the development of high potential talent, and we are collaborating with colleague representatives across the organisation to refresh the content and approach, including introducing a sponsorship model to support talent. We have also reviewed, redesigned, and implemented a refreshed temporary promotions policy.   

2024 focus: We will continue to understand where we have under representation, particularly at a senior leadership level. We will refresh our approach to performance and development. 

c) Get closer to the community

Progress: We have continued to develop a programme of engagement and external outreach with consumer bodies, charities, and local communities. 

2024 focus: We will continue to make the links and connections to enhance our learning and inform how we work. We will develop a more cohesive approach to university outreach, ensuring that we have access to the best future talent. 

Strategic objective 2 – Ensuring all colleagues are valued and can contribute to our success

Summary: We are focussed and committed on creating an inclusive culture, where all colleagues are valued and can contribute to our success. 

In 2022 we set out the following actions 

a) Develop a package of development initiatives

Progress: We have continued to run development sessions for leaders and colleagues as part of awareness days and as part of our broader Equality, Diversity and Inclusion training 

2024 focus: As part of a refreshed leadership framework, we will continue working with leaders to raise awareness around the skills, knowledge and experience to lead diverse teams inclusively. 

b) Develop a set of measures that enable us to hold ourselves and our leaders to account for the progress on inclusion, representation and closing our pay gaps 

Progress: We have scoped and agreed a holistic set of measures that incorporate Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, which uses quantitative data from our diversity information, and we have created an inclusion index that uses key questions in the Civil Service Staff Survey. We have continued to use our recruitment and promotion data to understand the diversity in our talent and recruitment pipelines and we have published our report into end of year performance outcomes for grade AO to Grade 6 staff. 

2024 focus: We will communicate and share the measures and outcomes with senior leaders to enable us to use our insights to focus on where we need to improve. 

c) We will ensure good governance arrangements to track the progress of our diversity and inclusion work

Progress: We have reviewed our governance arrangements and have simplified our structures to enable us to make the right decisions at the right level in the organisation. The result of this is that we have amalgamated our positive action groups into a Diversity and Inclusion Delivery Group - a smaller but effective steering group that oversees all activity and progress. 

2024 focus: We will keep our governance under review and amend as required. 

d) Ensure that we have fair outcomes for colleagues, particularly in terms of how colleagues are rewarded, developed and their performance is managed 

Progress: As part of reviewing our whole approach to pay and reward, we are collaborating with an external partner to review our performance and reward framework. A diverse range of colleagues have been involved in sharing feedback and insights and we expect to deliver a new framework in Autumn 2024. 

2024 focus: We will develop a new pay, reward, and performance framework, which will ensure that we have fair and equitable performance and reward frameworks in place for AO to Grade 6 and SCS colleagues. 

Strategic objective 3 – Empowering and enabling all colleagues to thrive and prosper. 

a) Promote a culture of wellbeing in our work and workplaces to create an environment where everyone can thrive

Progress: We have continued to implement the wellbeing calendar of national days, and the Wellbeing and Mental Health group meet monthly to discuss plans and activities. We are implementing the broader Civil Service wellbeing quarterly campaigns. 

2024 focus: We will develop our refreshed approach to Health and Wellbeing in the CMA, and we will develop a new strategy and plan of action. 

b) Understand and embrace different ways of contributing, working and thinking styles

Progress: Building on feedback from colleagues, we have introduced a number of workshops, with a focus on neurodiversity and we have appointed a senior sponsor to lead and shape a new staff network with a focus on neurodiversity. 

2024 focus: We will launch a new colleague network to provide support and recognition for colleagues who are neurodiverse. 

Our EDI structure 

We have an inclusive structure for establishing and delivering our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion work that span across all levels of the organisation. The actions under each theme are delivered by our Diversity and Inclusion Delivery Groups and the theme leads update on their progress to the Delivery Steering Group every 6 weeks. Our steering group is led by members of our Executive, therefore enabling visibility of our progress at the most senior level in the organisation. We also report our progress to our Executive Committee and our Board.  

Our Advisory Committee (AdCo) 

Since our Advisory Committee was established at the end of 2021, they have become and remain an integral part of how the organisation makes decisions. Sitting at each Executive meeting they offer a unique and diverse way of thinking across a wide range of issues, and they enable us to ensure that we are representing the perspectives of a diverse society. 

Staff networks 

Our staff networks are a vital part of our organisation. Each one is chaired by a colleague who has the passion and dedication to champion their chosen network, and each network is sponsored by a senior champion, with coaching and support also provided by HR professionals to help each network shape and deliver their priorities. 

Our network leads meet as a collective in the WIDE group (Wellbeing, Inclusion, Diversity and Equality) which is chaired by our Board Champion to agree and discuss achievements and priorities for the year. 

We also engage and consult with our staff networks on a range of work including; 

• consulting with our networks on our performance management progress and seeking views on the proposed framework
• our annual staff survey to help inform our action plans
• consultation activities to cocreate our action plans

What does our data show? 

Using our Diversity representation dashboard data, we can compare the representation in the CMA to the overall representation in the Civil Service. The data is correct as of 31 December 2023. 

To summarise: 

Personal characteristic	Civil Service representation (overall)	CMA representation (overall)	CMA SCS representation
Female	54.8%	51.2%	47.9%
Part Time	19.6%	11.6%	18.6%
Ethnic minorities	15.4%	23.8%	6.4%
Disability	15.8%	6.7%	4.3%
LGBTQ+	6.4%	8.2%	6.4%
Religious belief	57.6%	42.8%	30.7%
Marriage / Civil partnership	-	36.4%	55.7%
Age band
16 to 24 years	-	8.3%	0%
25 to 34 years	-	31%	2.1%
35 to 44 years	-	28.2%	42.1%
45 to 54 years	-	20.8%	35.7%
55+	-	11.7%	20%

We have a good balance of male and female staff overall, with 51.2% of staff being female. 47.9% of SCS posts are occupied by women.  

11.6% of staff work part time, and this increases to 18.6% of SCS colleagues. 

We have a strong representation of ethnic minorities overall at the CMA, but we only have 6.4% of ethnic minority staff who work at SCS level. 

6.7% of our staff have declared that they have a disability, but this reduced to 4.3% at SCS level. 

We have a strong representation of LGBTQ+ overall at the CMA at 8.2%, and 6.4% in SCS posts. 

42.8% of staff have a religious belief, and at SCS level this figure is 30.7%. 

36.4% of staff are in a marriage or civil partnership and at SCS level this figure is 55.7%. 

We have staff that are representative of all age bands overall, with most staff being between the ages of 25 and 44 years old. At SCS level, most staff are between the ages of 35 and 54 years old.