There's been a flurry of activity around the world in the past couple of months looking afresh and an old chestnut in corporate governance: women on boards. We're not sure where it came from or why, now, it has resurfaced with such intensity when previous ripples have come and gone without making waves. What we're seeing isn't perhaps a tsunami, but there's a swelling evident, not least in the decision of the UK accounting watchdog launching a formal consultation that could be a harbinger for a code if perhaps not a law about gender diversity on boards. The Financial Reporting Council, which also provides a home for the UK Corporate Governance Code and the Stewardship Code for institutional investors, launched the consultation to determine whether the governance code, revised only last May, should be revised again to identify key issues to be considered when boards review their effectiveness, including gender. FRC chairman Baroness Hogg said: "Board diversity and effectiveness are closely linked. Diversity widens the perspectives brought to bear on decision-making, avoids too great a similarity of attitude and helps companies understand their customers and workforces. A board with too few women on it risks a weakness in at least one of these respects."
The code already makes a general reference to board diversity and to women. But a government-sponsored report, published in February, noted what everyone else knew already: "the rate of change in recent years has been glacial", in Baroness Hogg's words. Consultation closes on July 29, and a decision on whether to amend the code will follow later in the year.
Source document: The FRC consultation paper is a 14-page pdf file.
No comments:
Post a Comment