HM Treasury Women in Finance Charter

The HM Treasury’s Women in Finance Charter (the Charter) is a commitment by signatory firms to work together to build a more balanced and fair financial services industry. Credit Services Association Limited (CSA) supports this initiative. We recognise that a balanced workforce is good for both our activities as a trade body and our subsidiary’s activities as a training provider. We therefore strive to achieve this balance and to encourage a diverse and inclusive culture.

When we signed up to the Charter in December 2019, we had 36% female representation in the senior management of CSA itself and 0% female representation in the senior management of our wholly owned subsidiary, CSA (Services) Ltd. We set a Charter target of achieving 50% for CSA and 30% for CSA (Services) Ltd by the end of 2022.

CSA achieved its target of 50% in March 2022 (ahead of the deadline) and CSA (Services) Ltd exceeded its original target of 30% in March 2021 (again ahead of target) when the female representation rose to 40%. 

Current position and expectations for the coming year

When we set our original Charter target for CSA, we recognised that our progress would depend on the democratic elections required to appoint new board directors from our membership and that our ability to influence gender balance in these circumstances would therefore be limited.

We are ending this 2025 calendar year with female representation in senior management of CSA at 45%, which is just slightly below our target of re-attaining a 50% overall representation by the end of December 2025. This is primarily due to the numbers of elected directors on the board over which we have very little control other than by encouraging all eligible candidates to stand for election regardless of gender. Our target of 50% of female managers as a proportion of employed senior management executive team has fallen from achieving 50% in 2024 to 37.5% in 2025 due to our General Counsel stepping down as a member of the senior management team. Two out of our three current independent directors are women very experienced in their respective fields. We are a very small organisation so any small changes to the number of women either appointed to our boards or employed by CSA has the potential significantly to affect our Charter target.

For CSA (Services) Ltd, we are pleased to report that female representation is now at a peak of 44% which exceeds our target of 30% by the target date of 31 December 2025. This is due to changes to the makeup of its board during the year, which saw more female directors appointed from the main CSA board. 
Our annual CSA board elections will take place in February 2026 and there will be four vacancies so we very much hope that the results of these elections will support us to meet our Charter targets.

By originally subscribing to the Charter we aimed to promote gender diversity in the financial services sector that we serve. We were therefore delighted that two of our larger members became Charter signatories this year (as announced in the WIF list of signatories in February 2024). We continue to believe that it is very important for CSA to remain a signatory to the Charter.  We aspire to achieve our targets beyond 31st December 2025, and have re-set our targets with an aspiration of achieving female representation of 50% in both overall senior management and on CSA (Services) Ltd board by 31st December 2028. The CSA remains committed to working towards our targets within the remit of our democratic election processes.

Chris Leslie is the member of the board of directors of CSA who is responsible and accountable for gender diversity and inclusion within CSA. He is the Chief Executive Officer of the CSA.

September 2025.