The Financial Conduct Authority has today been recognised as one of the best organisations in the UK for race equality despite recently missing its own targets for diversity among its senior management team.

The charity Business in the Community named the watchdog as one of the UK’s Best Employers for Race in a new listing of organisations leading the way on race equality published today.

Christopher Woolard, chair of the FCA’s Executive Diversity Committee, said he was delighted his organisation was on the list. He said: “Having a diverse and representative workforce helps us carry out our role better.”

Sandra Kerr, race equality director at Business in the Community, congratulated the FCA by saying the watchdog was taking a comprehensive and strategic approach to tackling racial inequalities within the organisation and that it had shown its “commitment and leadership on this issue”.

She added: “I hope more employers will follow their example of best practice and take part in the 2018 listing. If employers truly want their workplaces to reflect the clients, communities and customers they serve, the time to act is now.”

However, on Monday the FCA itself published a less than flattering update on its own progress in meeting a target of 8% of its senior leadership team identifying as BAME (black, Asian, minority ethnic) by 2020 and 13% by 2025. Despite the FCA’s best efforts, the figure dropped to 2% to the end of March 2017, down from 3% in 2016, but the organisation said it had renewed its efforts to reach its goal.

Mr Woolard said: “We are committed to hitting our targets for black and minority ethnic representatives on our senior leadership team and are taking positive steps to ensure this happens.”

Creating a ‘Best Employers for Race’ list was a recommendation made in the McGregor-Smith Review of race in the workplace earlier this year. Successful organisations had to provide evidence that they were putting leadership on race into place and creating inclusive workplace cultures and taking action in at least one of three areas - leadership, progression and recruitment. They also had to be able to demonstrate the impact of these policies on black, Asian and minority ethnic employees.

The Business in the Community listing is unranked and includes 65 public and private sector organisations listed in alphabetical order who collectively represent the best employers for BAME employees in the UK.