‘Charter for Women in Business’ backed by MPs

The Association of Accounting Technicians (AAT) has called to extend the ‘Women in Finance Charter’ to cover all businesses in the UK, a notion backed by most Members of Parliament.

Signed by just over 300 financial services firms, including AAT, its impact currently remains limited to the finance sector of the British economy.

The Charter asks financial services firms to commit to implementing four key industry actions:

To have a named senior executive responsible and accountable for gender diversity and inclusion

• To set internal targets for gender diversity in senior management positions
• To publish progress annually
• To ensure the pay of the senior executive team is linked to delivery against these internal targets on gender diversity

Phil Hall, AAT Head of Policy & Public Affairs, commented, “AAT was the first, and for a long time the only, professional accountancy body to sign the Women in Finance Charter, because it knows closing the gap leads to a more diverse and creative workforce, broadens the skills base and can increase creativity and innovation – to say nothing of the obvious issue of fairness and the financial imperative for change.

“However, AAT believes that much more could be done. Huge numbers of businesses, large and small, could improve their awareness and understanding of what needs to be done and make necessary changes, if the Charter was widened to include all sectors of the economy.“It’s pleasing that most MPs support such a change and we look forward to working them to try and achieve this in 2019.”

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