Corporate report

CMA diversity and inclusion Annual Plan 2025 to 2026

Published 28 March 2025

Introduction

In 2020 we published our EDI and wellbeing strategy and equality objectives. This document describes the importance of equality, diversity and inclusion to the way that we operate - both as the UK’s competition authority and as an employer.

We need staff from diverse backgrounds to ensure that we make sound decisions which are representative of the different experiences of the public and consumers we serve. As an employer, we benefit from the varied perspectives, skills, backgrounds and experiences of our people; and we are committed to providing opportunities for all colleagues to progress their career here at the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).

In the autumn of 2024, we started to develop the next iteration of our strategy (for 2025 to 2028), which included reviewing both quantitative and qualitative data, to enable us to evidence our priorities. 

We adopted the following principles:

• we are insight led, and evidence based
• we design interventions and actions through an understanding of the real-life experiences of the people we serve
• our plans have longevity for us to build on our progress and embed changes in the organisation
• we will focus on building organisational capability to ensure that leaders and colleagues have the knowledge, skills and behaviours to create and sustain a diverse and inclusive culture

We also said that we would give regard to:

• support for the government’s Plan for Change
• the wider Civil Service People strategy and approach to equality, diversity and inclusion
• the CMA’s overall strategy, and the broader transformational and change we expect to deliver in the period ahead

We will continue the development of our updated EDI strategy, but in the meantime we wanted to be clear the priorities we have agreed for 2025.

Our equality objectives

As a public sector organisation, we are bound by the Equality Act 2010 (Public Sector Equality Duty 2017) which means that we must comply with the general duty to: 

• eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other unlawful conduct prohibited by the act
• advance equality of opportunity between people who share and people who do not share a relevant protected characteristic
• foster good relations between people who share and people who do not share a relevant protected characteristic

We also have a specific duty to externally publish the following: 

• one or more equality objectives at least every 4 years
• gender pay gap by 30th March each year
• information about how we comply with the general and specific duty

As part of our work in 2024, we have reviewed our equality objectives which remain relevant.

They are:

• building a diverse and inclusive workforce that reflects and understands the public we serve
• ensuring all our colleagues are valued and can contribute to our success
• empowering and enabling all colleagues to thrive and prosper

Our approach to 2025

To support these equality objectives, we will undertake:

• work that enables us to continue to meet our statutory and legislative duties
• work that enables us to build on the progress in the last 4 years, embed initiatives and maintain momentum
• work that aligns with the longer-term organisational strategy and transformation of the CMA

We have retained our 3 strategic objectives for 2025, and we will report on the progress we have made in our Annual Report and Accounts:

• strategic objective 1 – building a Diverse and Inclusive Workforce that reflects and understands the public we serve
• strategic objective 2 – ensuring all colleagues are valued and can contribute to our success
• strategic objective 3 – empowering and enabling all our colleagues to thrive and prosper

Our strategic objectives

Strategic objective one – building a diverse and inclusive workforce that reflects and understands the public we serve.

Summary: we seek to build an  organisation that reflects the wider UK population and consumers we serve.  This supports our making decisions that are representative of the different perspectives within society. It also unlocks fresh thinking and innovative problem solving, helping us to deliver better solutions for consumers and markets.

In support of strategic objective 1, we will focus on the following priorities:

Continuing to attract great talent

In 2024 we conducted a diagnostic to consider how we recruit across different backgrounds. In 2025 we will implement the priority actions that were identified to enable us to attract the best talent from the widest possible talent pool.  Actions include:

• engaging with the Civil Service recruitment system upgrade programme which is expecting to replace Civil Service Jobs and improve application processes
• refreshing hiring manager and interview training materials
• making our job adverts shorter, and clearer (considering how we use language and imagery to attract the widest pool of suitable candidates)
• developing additional colleague stories to illustrate the diversity of our workforce
• maintaining our Disability confident employer status

Embedding our performance development framework

Our new framework is being launched in 2025 and we will be focused on embedding the changes into the organisation. This includes:

• all colleagues understanding their role and responsibilities in the new process
• developing line managers and work managers with the skills and behaviours to set fair objectives, review performance objectively and support colleagues’ professional development
• building a culture where feedback is transparent, constructive and two-way

Continuing to improve our data and insights

We want to improve the confidence of colleagues to share relevant demographic and socio-economic data for us to have a more comprehensive picture of our colleagues’ backgrounds,

Strategic objective 2 – ensuring all colleagues are valued and can contribute to our success

Summary: we are focussed on creating and sustaining a culture where colleagues are motivated by a sense of belonging and connection - with each other and with the purpose of the CMA.

Building on some of the initiatives implemented over the last 4 years we are focussing on:

• leadership development: to support more effective leadership, we will scope and deliver a workshop, starting with our senior leadership team
• staff networks: we will work with our networks to agree priorities aligned with these objectives and clarify roles and responsibilities, particularly for senior champions and HR leads
• culture: we will support local EDI champions who play an important role in supporting how we embed this across the organisation
• internal communications: we will continue to build awareness of the value of having a healthy and inclusive culture

Strategic objective 3 – empowering and enabling all our colleagues to thrive and prosper

Summary: We are committed to creating a healthy culture where colleagues can access the support they need to thrive in the CMA.

We recognise that there is always more that can be done to improve the culture for colleagues in the CMA. We will focus on the following priorities:

• developing and retaining talent: we will develop talent action plans for individuals in the succession pipeline, and we will refresh our talent development programmes
• workplace adjustments: continuing to improve our approach to workplace adjustments and providing support to colleagues who have a range of different needs.  We will also enhance our training and guidance for managers and HR to improve the approach in supporting colleagues who need adjustments
• health and wellbeing: to support managers to have more effective conversations around colleague wellbeing, we will create a conversation guide and tools for managers to access

Success measures

Our objectives and priorities will contribute to the following outcomes:

• a more representative workforce. We are clear on where we are under-represented in the organisation, particularly at a senior level. This work will contribute towards us meeting our representation ambitions, helping us:
  • maintain the improvement and/or further reduce our gender pay gaps. We are clear that improving our representation of women in senior roles is a significant contributing factor to us maintaining or reducing our pay gaps
  • improve our ethnicity pay gaps. Improving our representation at a senior level is the single biggest contributing factor to improving our ethnicity pay gaps
• reducing inequality in performance and development
• improving our Inclusion and Wellbeing indexes, particularly for colleagues who have a disability