Lloyds Bank sets target to increase number of senior Black staff

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s biggest domestic bank Lloyds has set a target to increase the number of Black staff in senior roles to at least 3% by 2025 from just 0.6% now.

The bank said on Friday it was introducing a ‘Race Action Plan’ after listening to Black employees across the business following Black Lives Matter protests.

The bank said it would publish an ethnicity pay gap report later this year and was setting up a new advisory board made up of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic staff to inform its diversity strategy.

Lloyds said it would also work with external experts to develop a race education programme.

Antonio Horta-Osorio, the outgoing CEO of Lloyds, said: “The commitments we are making will not fix the issues overnight, and targets and measures will only take us so far, but we have to challenge ourselves to do better and I am fully committed that we will do so.”

The plan was first reported by the Guardian newspaper.

(Reporting by Iain Withers; Editing by Mark Potter)