Lord Davies of
Abersoch has today (26 March 2014) published the third annual progress report into
Women on Boards. Three years on from the ground-breaking review in 2011, Lord
Davies and his steering group report a growing number of women in
decision-making roles.
The
latest figures today (26 March 2014), published at the same time as theCranfield
University School of Management’s Female FTSE Board report, show
that women now account for 20.7% of board positions in the FTSE100 – up
from 12.5% in 2011 and 17.3% in April 2013. Lord Davies originally set a target
in 2011 of achieving 25% in 2015.
There continues to be real progress made with more women
than ever before in the boardroom of the UK’s top companies and a growing
recognition of the benefits gained by business, the economy and wider
society.
Lord Davies, speaking ahead his speech at Barclays,
sponsors of the Cranfield report, on 26 March, said:
The
rate of change that we have seen at the heart of our biggest companies over the
last 3 years has been impressive. The voluntary approach is working and
companies have got the message that better balanced boards bring real business
benefits. We are finally seeing a culture change taking place at the heart of
British business.
However, the eyes of the world are on us as we enter the
home straight. They are judging us as to whether the voluntary approach, rather
than regulation, will work – we need to now prove we can do this on our
own.
Business Secretary Vince Cable said:
These latest figures show that businesses are getting
the right mix of talent around their boardroom table and understand the
importance of this. Ninety eight of the FTSE100 boards are now made up of at
least 1 woman and we need fewer than 50 new women appointments to FTSE100
boards to reach our target of 25% of women on all FTSE100 boards in the next
year. This is a huge improvement from where we started just 3 years
ago.
But
we will only achieve this if there is a renewed, concentrated effort by Chairs
and CEOs to continue to change the make up of management at their top
table.
More needs to done to improve the number of women in
executive positions. These will be the CEOs of tomorrow and
businesses still aren’t tapping into the vast talent pool available to
them.
Minister for Women and Equalities Maria Miller
said:
It
makes clear economic sense for women to be able to rise to the top. Good
progress is being made in Britain through a cultural shift that promotes on
merit, not through the mandatory quotas advocated by others.
The
workplace was designed by men for men. Women don’t need special treatment
they just need a modernised workplace that gives them a level playing field.
Supporting women to fulfil their full potential should be a core business
issue; not just so we can reach our target of 25% of female appointments to
FTSE100 boards by next year (2015), but for the long term sustainability of our
economy.
As
of 3 March 2014, in the FTSE100:
- women now account for 20.7% of overall board
directorships, up from 17.3% in April 2013
- of
this, women account for 25.5% of non-executive directorships and 6.9% of
executive dirctorships
- women account for 231 of the 1,117 FTSE100 board
positions
- women account for 28% of all board appointments in
2013/14
- there remain 2 all-male boards – Glencore Xstrata
and Antofagasta
- fewer than 50 new women appointments need to be made to
reach the 25% target
In
the FTSE 250 the figures show:
- women now account for 15.6% of overall board
directorships, up from 13.2% in 2013
- of
this, women account for 19.6% of non-executive directorships and 5.3% of
executive directorships
- women account for 33% of all board appointments in
2013/14
- there remain 48 all-male boards
The
latest report shows that more and more FTSE Chairs are convinced of the value
of women in boardroom. Twelve companies in the FTSE100 have 4 or more women in
the boardroom, with 27 having more than 2. The report also shows that companies
are setting themselves challenging targets while the pipeline continues to be
strengthened.
Antony Jenkins, Group Chief Executive of Barclays,
said:
At
Barclays, we recognise that encouraging greater diversity within an
organisation is an essential driver of long-term, sustainable success. While
the reports from Lord Davies and Cranfield show that women in the UK are
continuing to step into bigger leadership roles within their organisations,
they also highlight that we have more work to do. In 2014, I want to see more
female leaders have the opportunity to bring their ideas, vision, and expertise
to boardrooms across Britain and, indeed, the world.
Notes to editors:
-
A
copy of Lord Davies’s Review of Women on Boards annual report can be
found at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/women-on-boards-reports
-
In
February 2011 Lord Davies of Abersoch published his report Women on Boards
which set out a strategy aimed at ensuring that more women were appointed to
boardroom positions. He asked all FTSE 350 companies to set targets for the
number of women they expected to have on their boards and executive committees
in 2015. Lord Davies recommended that FTSE 100 boards should aim for a minimum
25% female representation on their boards by 2015.
-
The
Cranfield Female FTSE Board report will also be published on Wednesday 26 March
2014. More information can be found herewww.cranfield.ac.uk/som/news
-
In
March (2014), an independent report into the transparency of the executive
search agencies’ Code of Conduct by Charlotte Sweeney was published. More
details on this can be found at ‘Headhunter reforms to boost female board
appointments
-
Other notable developments include:
- two
new FTSE100 female Chief Executives – Liv Garfield at Severn Trent and
Moya Greene at Royal Mail Group. The current number stands at
4
- Fiona Woolf appointed as only the second ever female
Lord Mayor of the City of London
- Lloyd’s of London appointing their first female
Chief Executive – Inga Beale
- Old
Mutual appointing two female directors, with 4 out of the 12 director positions
held by women
- Lloyds Banking Group pledging that 40% of its top 5,000
jobs will be occupied by women within 6 years
- ministers holding a number of sector roundtables with
representatives of the FTSE350 over the past 9 months
- finally, an event for Chairs of the FTSE350 to network
with potential non-executive director candidates will be held in April
2014
6.The government’s economic policy objective is to
achieve ‘strong, sustainable and balanced growth that is more evenly
shared across the country and between industries’. It set 4 ambitions in
the ‘Plan for
Growth’, published at Budget 2011:
- to
create the most competitive tax system in the G20
- to
make the UK the best place in Europe to start, finance and grow a
business
- to
encourage investment and exports as a route to a more balanced
economy
- to
create a more educated workforce that is the most flexible in
Europe
Work is underway across government to achieve these
ambitions, including progress on more than 250 measures as part of the Growth
Review. Developing an Industrial
Strategy gives new impetus to this work by providing businesses,
investors and the public with more clarity about the long-term direction in
which the government wants the economy to travel.