The Securities and Exchange Commission is, again, asking its regulated entities, including money managers, to voluntarily disclose their diversity policies, practices and workforce data. Since its first attempt to collect this data in 2018, the agency has taken additional measures to improve the response rate, which has so far been tepid.
Surveys have been sent to the first group of potential respondents while all others will receive the "diversity assessment report" by November, the agency confirmed.
"The SEC has taken steps that will hopefully get more entities to share information about efforts to enhance diversity and inclusion in their organizations," said Pamela Gibbs, director of the SEC's office of minority and women inclusion, in a Jan. 28 email.
"At educational events and conferences hosted by industry trade associations and professional organizations, we have encouraged regulated entities to conduct self-assessments of their diversity policies and practices and share their self-assessments with the SEC," Ms. Gibbs said.
The commission's Office of Minority and Women Inclusion also contacted chief compliance officers of SEC-regulated entities and requested that they provide the appropriate point of contact within their organization for the diversity assessment report, she added.
The assessments, which were introduced in January 2018, are primarily intended for regulated entities with more than 100 employees, the SEC said at the outset of its first round of surveys that year. Regulated entities include those reporting as investment advisers, broker-dealers and private fund advisers to the SEC, as well as self-regulatory organizations, such as FINRA. The SEC, which expects to collect the information every two years, created the survey to assess the diversity policies and practices of the entities its regulates, as required by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010.
In the aftermath of the first survey, only 5%, or 69 of the 1,367 regulated entities that received the survey, responded, according to data provided by the SEC.