Our senior leaders are continuing to establish and work towards targets related to diversity and inclusion. These targets are linked to their bonus plan and are part of their wider ESG targets. Activity across the functions over the past year have been successful in driving better gender balance across the company.

In 2021 we completed a global Equal Pay Audit (EPA) with external partners KPMG, which positively validated our approach to fair pay. This year, we have evolved and deepened our pay analytics, by more closely examining how our salary benchmarking data from Willis Towers Watson drives our pay decisions, as well as how gender influences this relationship.

We also continue to meet our target to have at least two women on every shortlist for roles across the organization. In the 2022 reporting period we saw an increase from 70% to 80% of roles achieving this target. We hope to see a continued increase in this key metric in 2023.

We continue to work with several organizations around best practice in diversity and inclusion. The Business Disability Forum, Business In The Community and Stonewall have provided us with resources and advice that inform our gender equity journey.

Results in 2022 have reconfirmed that the majority of our gender pay gap is caused by too few women at senior job levels across our business, as well as fewer males at more junior levels. We are pleased with our continued progress, but we continue to make changes which will enhance that progress.

With the creation of new roles in the Talent Team dedicated to inclusive succession planning and talent management, combined with our increased ability to leverage real-time people data, we are confident that we will see continued positive and sustainable impact on our business.