Diversity Survey Results 2023

Following the completion of our Probate diversity data survey 2023 we present this summary of our results.

All five partners are ICAEW Chartered Accountants. Of our professional team, three are qualified members of the ICAEW, one is a qualified accountant with another professional body, eight are training with ICAEW and three members of our team are training for other qualifications. We are also supported by one additional member of the support team who is not training for any qualifications.

In our opinion we have a reasonably good level of diversity across various areas as shown below:

• 20.83% of the team are under 25 (2021 survey: 29%), 25% aged between 25-34 (2021 survey: 25%), 20.83% are 35-44 years old (2021 survey: 12.5%), 12.5% are 45-54 years old (2021 survey: 16.67%), 8.33% of the team are aged 55-64 (2021 survey: 8.3%) no members of the team are aged 65+ (2021 survey: same) and the remaining team members observed their right to not say.
• 42% of our team (across all areas of the business) are female (2021 survey: 46%), 8.33% preferred not to state their gender.
• 87.5% of the team are heterosexual, 4% are bisexual and 8.5% preferred not to say
• 4% of the team have a disability as defined in the Equality Act, 88% state they do not have a disability (2021 survey: 96%) and the 8% preferred not to say when completing their questionnaire.
• 21% of the team are from Asian/Asian British ethnicity (2021 survey: 29%), 62% are White British. (2021 survey: 54%), 4% from other white backgrounds (2021 survey: 8.5%) and 13% preferred not to say (2021 survey: 8.5%). We recognise that we do currently have any team members ethnic groups including Irish, Black, African, Caribbean and other Mixed/multiple ethnic backgrounds.
• Looking at the split of our team based on their Faith, 54% of our team are Christian (2021 survey: 50%), 8.5% are Hindu (2021 survey: 12.5%), 29% are not associated with any religion (2021 survey: 17%), 8.5% preferred not to state their religion (2021 survey: 12.5%) and the 2021 probate survey also had 8% who associated with another religion not named in the survey.
• 21% of our team were the first generation in their family to attend university, 37.5% were not the first generation to obtain a degree level, 33.5% of our team did not attend university and the balance of the team preferred not to say.
• 46% attended a Non-selective UK state school (2021 survey: 58%), 25% attended a selective (on academic, faith or other grounds) UK state school (2021 survey: 4%), 8.5% attended a UK independent/fee paying school (2021 survey: 17%) and the balance is made up of those attending school outside the UK or who preferred not to say.
• 8% of our team were part of a household receiving income support during their school years, 8% do not know if they received such support, 8% preferred not to say and the balance were made up of households that did not claim income support
• When our team were asked to think back to the age of 14 and select what best describes the type of work of the highest income earner in their household the results were as follows:
  • Three team members selected Modern professional occupations such as: teacher/lecturer, nurse, physiotherapist, social worker, welfare officer, artist, musician, police officer (sergeant or above), software designer;
  • Two team members selected Clerical and intermediate occupations such as: secretary, personal assistant, clerical worker, office clerk, call centre agent, nursing auxiliary, nursery nurse;
  • Five team members selected Senior managers and administrators usually responsible for planning, organising and co-ordinating work and for finance such as: finance manager, chief executive;
  • One team member selected Semi-routine manual and service occupations such as: postal worker, machine operative, security guard, caretaker, farm worker, catering assistant, receptionist, sales assistant;
  • Three team members selected Routine manual and service occupations such as: HGV driver, van driver, cleaner, porter, packer, sewing machinist, messenger, labourer, waiter / waitress, bar staff;
  • One team member selected Armed forces personnel for example soldier, airman, naval or military policy;
  • Two team members selected Middle or junior managers such as: office manager, retail manager, bank manager, restaurant manager, warehouse manager, publican;
  • Three team members selected Traditional professional occupations such as: accountant, solicitor, medical practitioner, scientist, civil/mechanical engineer;
  • One team member selected Long term unemployed (claimed Jobseeker's Allowance or earlier unemployment benefit for more than a year); and
  • Two team members preferred not to say and one team member did not know.
• 12.5% of our team are primary carers for children under the age of 18, 75% are not primary carers and the remainder preferred not to say.
• 33% of our team are married (2021 survey: 12.5%), 50% of our team are single (never married or registered as a same-sex civil partnership) (2021 survey: 46%), 4% (2021: n/a) are divorced/formally in same sex civil partnership which is legally dissolved and the balance is made up of those who state their marital or civil partnership is other or they preferred not to say.

Summary:

Our practice is heavily focused on ICAEW training and as we typically promote team members internally to Partner/Manager level it is not surprising that there is a heavy weighting to ICAEW across all roles. We have a good mix across all age brackets (although we do note there is nobody over the age of 64 due to staff still wanting to retire at 65), gender (slightly more bias to male team members but not by a significant margin), religions (although we do appreciate, given the ethnicity split, our team is more heavily geared towards Christianity) and socio-economic backgrounds. We acknowledge the split of ethnicity amongst our team is focused heavily on White and Asian ethnic backgrounds, which is similar to the previous survey. In addition, we have don’t have much diversity when looking at Sexual orientation perspective. These are not conscious decisions by the practice as our recruitment process is wide and varied to attract candidates from every ethnic/sexual orientation group, but we typically find the ethnicity of candidates applying is representative of the ethnicity of our team and we are of course unaware of their sexual orientation, why this is the case we do not know. We are an open and transparent practice and work with our team to assist them with any issues they have including returning to work after Maternity/Paternity leave and wherever possible offering a flexible work pattern.