City told it can record pay by sex or gender

BRITAIN’S financial services watchdog has told banks they can decide whether they categorise their staff by sex or gender when reporting pay gap data.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is consulting on a new diversity strategy which says firms can report on “either the demographic characteristic of sex or that of gender”.

The strategy goes against the instruction from Kemi Badenoch, the equalities minister, that data should be collected on the basis of biological sex and not self-identified gender.

A gender-critical group of campaigners based in the financial sector has now written to the Chancellor to ask him to investigate the FCA’S move.

The group, SEEN in the City, say the strategy should be ditched, and are demanding that Jeremy Hunt look into how the “gender identity approach” came about.

It fears the salaries of biological men could be recorded as belonging to women, potentially skewing the data.

The revelation comes a day after campaigners warned that gender pay gap laws have been undermined by advice from civil servants telling companies to record workers by how they identify rather than by biological sex.

The FCA’S new strategy to “boost diversity and inclusion” says: “We propose that firms would be required to report on either the demographic characteristic of sex or that of gender, in line with our requirements for reporting on the diversity of boards and executive management. Firms could choose to report on both characteristics on a voluntary basis.”

The letter from SEEN in the City said: “We believe this would not be consistent with protecting the rights of employees and in particular understanding and tackling structural sexism in the financial sector.”