Women in Finance Charter Treasury’s update 2023/2024
Published 11 March 2025
© Crown copyright 2025
This publication is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3 or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gov.uk.
Where we have identified any third party copyright information you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned.
This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/women-in-finance-charter-treasury-progress-update-2024/women-in-finance-charter-treasurys-update-20232024
HM Treasury is a signatory to the Women in Finance Charter and is publishing the following update on progress.
Overview
The Treasury is committed to building a department that reflects and understands the citizens we serve. Our people are drawn from a rich mix of backgrounds, skills and expertise. This enables us to draw on the widest possible evidence, experiences and perspectives in order to better understand and resolve problems, effectively advise our ministers, strengthen our policy making, and maintain robust corporate functions.
We support everyone to thrive and belong here; therefore, all talents are embraced, valued and successes celebrated, ensuring everyone feels empowered to perform in our jobs to the best of our ability and in different ways.
Priorities
Gender Pay Gap
The gender pay gap shows the difference between the average pay between all men and women in a workforce. This is different to equal pay which deals with pay difference between men and women who have same job, similar jobs or work of equal value. The gender pay gap compares the mean and median pay and bonuses for all men and women. This means it is heavily influenced by the representation of women at different grades.
The Treasury is committed to taking forward a long-term action plan that identified key pay and non-pay actions to help us to reduce our pay gap. The plan supports actions on recruitment & retention and learning and development to support the representation and progression of women at higher grades; pay and allowances by reviewing policies and making them more visible to empower and encourage more women to apply for them; improving our tracking, monitoring, and reporting of the gender distribution across pay awards and bonuses to identify and reduce disparities.
In July 2024, the Cabinet Office published the annual Civil Service statistics 2024 for Treasury core and four of its executive agencies: Government Internal Audit Agency (GIAA); Debt Management Office (DMO); the National Infrastructure Commission (NIC); and the Office for Budget Responsibility. In December 2024, HM Treasury published an updated Gender Pay Gap Report.
Support
Our aim is to improve and maintain the representation of women in finance, particularly for the pipeline into the Senior Civil Service (SCS) and supporting women returning to work after career breaks and/or maternity leave. This will ensure that those away from work have access to the same opportunities for progression.
Our Board level champion for Gender in the Treasury demonstrates our commitment at senior level and plays an important role in progressing and supporting the changes we would like to see on gender equality and demonstrating our commitment to creating a thriving culture for all colleagues. We will be continuing with our new buddying and mentoring scheme for women returning to work after a time away. We will also continue offering career development opportunities for women, including looking at how we support women out of the department on maternity leave/ career breaks to develop their careers and achieve their potential.
Targets
The Treasury has reached its target of 50% of representation of women in the Senior Civil Service (SCS). When we signed up to the Charter in March 2016, we had 43% female representation in senior management, this has increased to 50.3% representation (March 2024) and we continue to take action to build upon this progress. Over 58% of our Executive Management Board positions are held by women.
Treasury’s Women’s Network
The Treasury’s work to improve gender equality is supported by a well-established Women in the Treasury Network made up of volunteers across the department at all grades. The Network aims to strengthen links between women in the Treasury and to both examine, and tackle, broader issues specific to women in our workplace. It provides a forum for women to be inspired by the experiences of other women, to benefit from a supportive community in which their concerns can be shared and to identify constructive responses to some of the issues that are raised. The Network runs a programme of awareness-raising events including events aimed at supporting Treasury women’s career progression, flexible working and hybrid working.