News / HFMA launches membership study

31 August 2021 Steve Brown

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The association has worked closely in recent years with NHS England and NHS Improvement, as well as Future-Focused Finance, to understand and improve diversity and inclusion in NHS finance departments.Emma Knowles of HFMA

Working with the Skills Development Network, it has amended its biennial finance function census to collect details of ethnicity alongside the data it has traditionally collected on pay bands, the type of organisation finance staff work in, and gender.

The next collection will be run next year – following a year’s delay to enable the new census to reflect the system structures that will be in place from next April. However, while there is an improving understanding of the make-up of the national finance function as a whole in terms of gender, ethnicity and seniority, the HFMA cannot undertake the same analysis for its own membership.

‘We have done some work to improve the diversity of our committees and groups, although there is more to do,’ says HFMA policy and communications director Emma Knowles (pictured).

‘But we don’t know very much about the actual make-up of our membership beyond name, organisation, job title and contact details. This means we don’t know how diverse we are as a membership. And we don’t know whether our membership reflects the national function in terms of age.

‘We are determined to be fully representative of the whole finance function and getting a better understanding of how our membership is made up is a key part of that,’ she added.

The HFMA will be asking members to provide extra details over the autumn. No individual details will be shared with anyone else. And members can opt not to provide the additional information if they prefer.

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