Corporate report

The Insolvency Service Equality Report 2024-25

Updated 11 March 2026

Applies to England, Scotland and Wales

What we have been doing at the Insolvency Service to meet our responsibilities for equality in 2024 to 2025.

1. About us

We are a government agency that helps to deliver economic confidence by supporting those in financial distress, tackling financial wrongdoing and maximising returns to creditors. We are sponsored by the Department for Business and Trade.

We are responsible for the country’s Insolvency framework and have a key role to play in supporting those experiencing financial difficulty. We investigate and prosecute breaches of company and insolvency legislation and other criminal offences.

We base everything we do on our Five-Year strategy (2021 to 2026), which sets out our purpose, strategic objectives and longer-term ambitions. We report on our work annually, see our 2024-25 annual report and accounts. Part of our Five-Year strategy is to ‘Shape’ the Agency into a great place to work. We want to create a diverse workplace that is representative of the public we serve – one that will attract and retain talented people from all backgrounds, and give everyone, including those already working for us, the opportunity to achieve their potential.

As civil servants, we also abide by the core values of the Civil Service Code:

• honesty
• integrity
• impartiality
• objectivity

Find out more about the Insolvency Service

2. Executive Summary

This report demonstrates how the Insolvency Service is meeting its Public Sector Equality Duty under the Equality Act 2010. Monitoring the equality and diversity of our workforce shows us the effect of our employment policies and processes, which enables us to identify areas where there may be differences between groups and where interventions may be required.

This report also meets our statutory obligation to publish Gender Pay Gap data by 30 March each year. It includes the mean and median gender pay gaps; the mean and median gender bonus gaps; the proportion of men and women who received bonuses; and the proportions of male and female employees across each pay quartile.

This report covers the period between 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, and provides our gender pay gap using the snapshot date of 31 March 2025.

2025 Headlines:

• Women make up a larger proportion of the workforce in the Insolvency Service, with female representation at 57.3% compared to 54.6% across the wider Civil Service.

• Our workforce is slightly older workforce than the wider Civil Service with a median age of 46 years.

• Providing diversity data is not a mandatory requirement for employees. to provide diversity data, which can lead to insufficient information being recorded and meaningful analysis difficult. However, work is on-going to encourage employees to voluntarily provide their diversity information on the HR system. This data provides a vital role in shaping our policies and assessing the impact of change across the agency.

• Of those employees with a known ethnicity, 22% are from an ethnic minority background – this is greater than the Civil Service average of 18%.

• Where disability status is known, the proportion of employees who consider themselves as having a disability or long-term health condition has increased to 20.2% this is higher than the 17.9% Civil Service average.

• Where religion or belief is known, 43.3% of employees reported as having no religion or belief, compared to 44.6% in the wider Civil Service.

• Of those with a known sexual orientation 6.1% of our employees identify as being lesbian, gay, bisexual or other (LGBO), this is less than the 7.2% Civil Service average

• Our mean gender pay gap decreased by 1.6% to 4.6% and our median gender pay gap decreased by 5% to 3%.

3. Equality at the Insolvency Service

Inclusion First, our inclusion strategy, was launched in 2021. Our vision is to ‘be a great organisation where everyone can feel comfortable, accepted, valued, and supported to be their true self and deliver their best.’ Key areas to deliver our vision are:

• Culture - Building and thriving in an inclusive environment.
• Representation - Attract, engage and retain individuals from a range of diverse characteristics and socio-economic backgrounds.
• Capability – building capability to meet all changing developments
• Access to our services – accessibility for all.

To help promote and mainstream diversity and equality we also have Diversity Champion who are members of our Executive Leadership Team. Additionally, each one of our 9 employee network groups have been sponsored by a named senior leader.

Our employee networks have played an incredibly important role in helping to deliver diversity and inclusion activity across the Agency.

To strengthen awareness and governance of diversity and inclusion, we have an established Diversity Forum led by one of our Diversity Champions and supported by representatives from across the business and our employee network groups. The forum plays a key role in promoting and inclusive culture throughout the agency by celebrating events, sharing achievements and news, and supporting the implementation of policy changes. It also provides valuable guidance to our network groups and helps shape the strategic direction and priorities for diversity and inclusion. The Diversity Forum proactively supports the Insolvency Service and Civil Service vision to be a brilliant, diverse, and inclusive place to work, by empowering our people to bring their true self to work. Members are responsible for cascading information within their directorates, driving forward actions that re-enforce our inclusive culture and sharing best practice across the agency.

4. Our People

This data was drawn from the Annual Civil Service Employment Survey (ACSES) which is collated and published collectively across the Civil Service by the Cabinet Office.

4.1. Headcount and grade by sex

Date	Employee	Female	Male
31 March 2025	1,856	57.3%	42.7%
31 March 2024	1,729	56.8%	43.2%
31 March 2023	1,649	57.6%	42.4%

As at 31 of March 2025, the total number of employees increased by 127 since 2024, with the proportion of female employees increasing slightly to 57.3%. Overall, we continue to employee more women than men and have a higher representation of women than the Civil Service figure (54.6%).

Grade	Female	Male
Senior Civil Servant, Grade 6 & Grade 7	99	84
Senior Executive Officer (SEO) & Higher Executive Officer (HEO)	536	440
EO	115	80
AO	314	188

Men and women are represented at every level of the organisation, from our apprentices to our Board. Apart from Senior Civil Servant grade, we have a higher proportion of females across all grades, with more women represented at lower grades. The gender split of our grades is something we monitor closely.

4.2. Age

Age band	Insolvency Service	Civil Service
16-19	Data too small to publish	0.2%
20-29	12.2%	16.0%
30-39	17.6%	24.1%
40-49	30.2%	23.1%
50-59	27.1%	24.8%
60-64	9.8%	8.7%
65 and over	3.0%	3.0%

| Median age | 46 years | 44 years | | — | — | — |

We have a slightly older workforce compared to the Civil Service average, with a greater representation between the ages of 40 to 64 and less at ages 20 to 39.

4.3. Ethnicity

Of those employees with a known ethnicity, 22% are from an ethnic minority background as at 31 March 2025. This is higher than the wider Civil Service, where 18% are from an ethnic minority background.

We have seen a steady increase in employee from an ethnic minority background from 20.6% in 2024 and 19.5% in 2023.

We also have a higher proportion of workers from an ethnic minority background than the economically working age population in the UK (18.6%).

4.4. Disability

Where disability status is known, the proportion of employees who considered themselves as having a disability or long-term health condition has increased to 20.2% as at 31 March 2025, compared to 18.1% in 2024. This is higher than the wider Civil Service, where 17.9% of employees considered themselves as having a disability or long-term health condition.

4.5. Religion and Belief

Where religion or belief is known, 43.3% of employees reported as having no religion or belief, compared to 44.6% in the wider Civil Service. The most reported religion or belief is Christianity at 41.5% in the Insolvency Service and 41.8% in the wider Civil Service. The second most reported is Islam (Muslim) at 8.3% in the Insolvency Service, which is greater than the 6.1% Civil Service average.

4.6. Sexual Orientation

As of 31 March 2025, 6.1% of employees who have shared their sexual orientation identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or other (LGBO), reflecting an increase from 5.5% in 2024. While this is slightly below the Civil Service average of 7.2%, it demonstrates encouraging progress in visibility and representation within our organisation.

4.7. Gender Re-assignment

The agency is part of the Civil Service, and we will be making best use of resources for employees in government departments and agencies who have changed or need to change permanently their perceived sex (transsexual/transgender), or who identify as intersex. We monitor employees who have changed their assigned sex from the one assigned at birth. Presently, there is no analysis in this area due to low recording rates.

4.8. Pregnancy, Maternity and Paternity

We are committed to ensuring employees can access the full range of pregnancy, maternity, shared parental and adoption related benefits offered   which enable employees and skills to be retained. To achieve this, we have a range of policies and practices in place.

5. Recruitment

The Insolvency Service abides with the Recruitment Principles of fair and open competition with candidate selection based on merit. We are accountable to the Civil Service Commission. In July 2023 we launched our Centralised Recruitment Team, which continuously reviews our recruitment practices. To ensure fairness we use the following methods:

• advertise all jobs as available for flexible working, full-time, job share or part time unless this is a very strong business case not to.
• ensuring the use of best practice gender neutral language in job adverts
• introduction of recruitment “Success Profiles” which has gone through rigorous equality analysis. The Success Profiles Framework moves recruitment away from using a purely competency-based system of assessment. It introduces a more flexible framework which assesses candidates against a range of elements using a variety of selection methods. This will give the best possible chance of finding the right person for the job, driving up performance and improving diversity and inclusion. The elements that can be assessed to find the best candidate for the role are strengths, behaviours, technical, experience and ability.
• anonymised sifting where all identifiable characteristics are removed
• ensuring that recruitment panels are gender-balanced
• review our data to ensure that we continue to attract a more diverse pool of candidates from application stage to offer stage.
• use our Skills Tool to give visibility of people with expertise, people who need help, and will help bring those people together. The Skills Tool provides a personal record to assist people’s development, and career planning.

6. Learning and Development

We consider the development of its employees as a key part of our talent strategy and provides a range of centrally managed learning and development opportunities for all its employees. Some of these opportunities are specifically targeted towards those with protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010 or where a particular group is currently under-represented in our workforce. Others may be less targeted but nevertheless aid development and retention of these groups.

All employees have access to Civil Service Learning which contains e-learning and direct face to face learning opportunities on several learning and development opportunities. The Civil Service offers several central cross-government talent and positive action schemes. The Agency takes part in several talent programmes that are coordinated and delivered by Civil Service Learning. These include:

• Senior Leadership Scheme (Deputy Directors & SCS1)
• Beyond Boundaries (AA - SEO grade)
• Crossing Thresholds (AO - SEO grade)
• Future Leaders Scheme (grade 7)

Records of local training are not held centrally and therefore it would involve disproportionate costs to undertake a diversity analysis of those who have undertaken training.

7. Working Pattern

Our flexible working policy encourages the business to accommodate alternate working patterns which includes part-time employment.

Almost one in five (19.1%) people work part-time as of 31 March 2025. This is up from 17.6% in 2024. In comparison, 19.4% of civil servants work part-time.

We also recognise the benefits of flexible working in helping it attract and retain a talented and diverse workforce. This also helps employees to balance other priorities e.g., caring responsibilities for a better work-life balance.

We:

• advertise all jobs as open for part-time, job share, or flexible working
• have an open process for applying to work hybrid and flexibly, and we encourage line managers to talk to their team about the opportunities for alternate working arrangements
• provide the technology so that all out people can work flexibly from home, office or on the move, to help them maintain a work life balance.

8. Gender Pay Gap (GPG)

We published our Gender Pay Gap Report on gov.uk for ease we have included previous years in our analysis making 3-year period comparisons.

	31 March 2023	31 March 2024	31 March 2025	2025 Changes
Mean GPG	8.7%	6.2%	4.6%	-1.6%
Median GPG	11.10%	8.0%	3.0%	-5%
Mean bonus GPG	-2.5%	-3.2%	-3.7%	+0.5%
Median bonus GPG	-9.1%	-6.3%	0%	-6.3%

Our 2025 GPG figures show a reduction in both our mean gender pay gap to 4.6% and median gender pay gap to 3%. The reduction follows the 1 August 2023 pay award, which began to address several longstanding pay issues. These include the removal of marked time pay, the elimination of overlapping pay ranges, and enhancements to pay scales across all grades, particularly benefiting the lowest-paid employees. These changes were made in preparation for alignment with the Civil Service grading structure. The improvements made have had a positive impact on our gender pay gap.

In comparison, the mean gender pay gap for the Civil Service reduced to 6.9% in 2025, and the median gender pay gap reduced to 6.4% in 2025. In analysing our GPG over a 3-year period, both the mean and median have continued to reduce.

The gender pay gap is calculated as the difference between average (mean or median) hourly earnings excluding overtime of men and women as a proportion of men’s average hourly earnings. As per the regulations, the pay gaps are based on the pay data on the snapshot date of 30 March 2025. The bonus gaps and participation figures are based on bonuses paid over the 12 months prior to the snapshot date.

The difference in grade distribution is likely to be the main driver of the overall gender pay gap. As the gender pay gap calculations look at the total workforce, the pay gap can be attributed to an uneven split of men and women by grade, with a predominately female workforce and more men at Senior Civil Servant level. In terms of the data relating to bonuses, the negative mean figure show women received higher value awards than men.

We are committed to continually improving representation of talented women across all pay grades, a key step in closing our Gender Pay Gap We will continue to do this by taking the following actions:

Recruitment: Our Centralised Recruitment Team regularly review our recruitment practices, which will help women access opportunities. Actions include ensuring that recruitment panels are gender-balanced, addressing gender bias in job adverts, exploring alternative places to advertise jobs to attract a diverse pool of candidates and advertising expressions of interest through network groups.

Learning & Development: We have an annual budget for a Women into Leadership programme. We have also facilitated female SCS job shadowing and ‘day in the life’/’women in the SCS’ sessions for female G6 colleagues. The Agency has also created an Innovation Squad formed of five G6 female colleagues to address under-representation of female SCS in the Agency.

Women’s network: Our women’s network continues to help improve engagement and awareness, whilst also facilitating networking across the Agency. It also participates in our mentoring for success is aimed at underrepresented groups, where senior managers are mentored by more junior members of staff. The network helps women further their practical skills and have inspiring role models.

Supporting parents and carers: We know that returning to work after starting a family can be challenging. We are signatories of the Carers Charter to show our commitment to supporting carers in the workspace. Our Carers Network also provides support, insight, and advice to employees. Employees continue to welcome our flexible working options, which benefits all our people, especially carers and has the indirect effect of helping women.

Please see ‘Our Inclusion Strategy 2021-25’ for further details on work been undertaken by the Agency, which will also help reduce our Gender Pay Gap.

9. Our Inclusion Strategy 2021-25

Our Inclusion First strategy was launched in July 2021 to support our Five-Year strategy (2021 to 2026) to ‘Shape’ the agency into a great place to work. We want to create a diverse workplace that is representative of the public we serve – one that will attract and retain talented people from all backgrounds, and give everyone, including those already working for us, the opportunity to achieve their potential. Our Inclusion First strategy successes include:

• All employees, including ELT members, have bespoke D&I objectives that they are personally accountable for as part of their performance appraisal, thus ensuring D&I actions are linked to business objectives.

• Diversity data vyond video created with input from our network chairs has helped evidence the increase in diverse representation within our workforce, as outlined in Section 4 (Our People). Feedback on videos include ’the video emphasised to me how important it is to record diversity data so that not only you, but the entire workforce, can be supported and represented more effectively’. Diverse representation across the agency continues to improve, with the Agency have greater overall representation when compared to the wider Civil Service.

• Our employee networks worked with HR and Comms colleagues to celebrate the diversity of our employees and notable days/events via blogs, to build knowledge and understanding within the agency, in accordance with the Civil Service Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Expenditure Guidance.

• We gained Carer’s Confident Level 2 status with feedback confirming we provided ‘a very strong submission and the support that you provide to carers is wide-ranging and extensive.’

• We reviewed and evaluated our Equality Impact Assessments framework to ensure that our people are at the forefront of all change, whilst demonstrating due regard to the public sector equality duty under the Equality Act 2010 to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity, and foster good relations between people with protected characteristics.

• We achieved Disability Confident Leader (Level 3) accreditation from DWP with our assessment recognising that the agency is ‘doing a lot of great work and our commitment to supportive and inclusive practice was definitely evident in our submission”.

• Our Outreach Strategy enabled us to lead on programme to engage underrepresented groups and promote the Agency at events, including DWP job fairs to help tackle economic inactivity and support people into good work.

• We complete the Race at Work Charter demonstrating that we are a diverse and inclusive employer. All accreditation logos are promoted in our recruitment candidate packs and outreach pack to attract a diverse candidate pool.

• Recruitment actions include ensuring that recruitment panels are diverse, exploring alternative places to advertise jobs to attract a diverse pool of candidates and advertising expressions of interest across the agency.

• New talent management process includes career conversation routes, as well as launching a skills tool and a career pathways tool to development talent within the agency.

Our Inclusion First strategy and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy end in 2025. We will ensure that our new strategy remains aligned the agency and wider civil service.

10. Methodology

This report shows the demographics of the Insolvency Service’s workforce as of 31 March 2025 and utilises monitoring data from the year ended 31 March 2025. Where comparisons are made to Civil Service data the figures are from the same period. Employees included in the analysis includes all paid permanent and fixed term employees but not agency workers or consultants.

The monitoring data is extracted from the Insolvency Service’s internal records and the dashboard designed by the Analysis & Insight team at Cabinet Office using the 2025 Annual Civil Service Employment Survey (ACSES) data on behalf of the Insolvency Service. With regards to employees, the data is as recorded on our HR system. Employees are responsible for completing and updating their own diversity information online.