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The Bank of England, Santander and fashion designer Stella McCartney are among the UK businesses that have committed to voluntarily report聽their ethnicity pay gap.

A total of 15 companies have signed up to the initiative aimed at tackling workplace inequality and are urging others to follow suit.

The move comes almost a year since firms were required to report their gender pay gap and two months since the government completed its consultation on ethnicity pay reporting.

Other signatories include health provider Bupa, accountancy firms EY and KPMG, ITN, insurance market Lloyd's of London, and advertising giant WPP.

Research from INvolve found there are more FTSE 100 company chief executives called Steve than ethnic minority leaders put together, and that 51% of companies listed on London's blue-chip index have no ethnic minority board members.

INvolve also revealed that white people earn on average between £67 and £209 more per week compared with counterparts from a different ethnic background.

Only around 3% of large companies have voluntarily reported their ethnicity pay gaps to date, including the Bank of England and Deloitte.

Transparency over pay has come into sharp relief in recent years, with new rules this year requiring the UK's largest companies to justify bosses' salaries and reveal the pay gap with their average workers.

It came after years of shareholder and public outrage over bumper chief executive pay at firms such as Persimmon, WPP, BP, Shell, Lloyds, AstraZeneca and William Hill.

The government finished consulting last month on a directive to require companies to report their ethnicity pay gap, but the nature of the data to be reported, and how it will be reported, remains unclear.

INvolve co-founder Suki Sandhu said: "Addressing hard issues like disparity and race is never easy, but the moral and business case for taking action must win out.

"For many businesses the idea of increasing corporate reporting is not a welcome one.

"But, as shown by mandatory gender pay gap reporting, it is vital to encourage discussion and help businesses to deliver impactful change."

Bank of England chief operating officer Joanna Place said: "Reporting on the gender pay gap has helped us better understand some of the challenges we face in progressing our inclusion and diversity agenda.

"Extending this scrutiny to the ethnicity pay gap is not only the right thing to do, it also makes good business sense for companies wanting to recruit and retain talent."

Emma Codd, managing partner for talent at Deloitte, said, "Deloitte has voluntarily reported its ethnicity pay gap since 2017; this year we have also published our total ethnicity earnings gap, which includes all equity partners.

"While ethnicity pay gap reporting is not without its challenges, I believe such transparency is critical to improving diversity in business."

Cabinet Office Minister David Lidington said: "There is an urgent need to explain or change ethnic disparities.

"As the prime minister's race disparity audit revealed, average hourly pay for white people is higher than the average hourly pay for people from almost all other ethnic groups.

"We must all seek to confront uncomfortable truths like this, so I welcome the action taken by these employers today to do just that.

"Their commitment builds on our consultation with employers exploring how to introduce mandatory ethnicity pay reporting without placing undue burden on businesses."

Here are the companies that will publish their ethnicity pay gap:

:: Bank of England

:: Bupa

:: Citi

:: Creative Equals

:: Deloitte

:: EY

:: ITN

:: Jomas Associates

:: KPMG

:: Lloyds of London

:: Reluctantly Brave

:: Santander

:: Sodexo

:: Stella McCartney

:: WPP