London's City regulators have decided to promote the introduction of mandatory quotas of female representation on corporate boards, as reported on the British People Management server. Large companies operating in the financial sector will therefore be invited to set up internal nomination committees to determine the quotas. All companies in the sector, regardless of size, will then have to submit their diversity strategies addressing the issue of filling positions on boards of directors and supervisory boards.
These measures will cover 2,400 banks, building societies and investment companies falling under the regulation of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA). The regulators are running a consultation on how to implement the measures required by the European Union. (You can read the relevant EU directive - "CRD IV" - here).
Only financial institutions have been involved so far; however, all other large companies could be invovled soon as well. Although the British government refuses to introduce blanket mandatory quotas as proposed by the European Union, at the same time it is trying to get the largest British companies to voluntarily fill 25 percent of board positions with women by 2015.
One hundred largest companies in the UK: 17.4% of women on boards
In February 2011, the British government advisor Lord Davies of Abersoch published the report entitled Women on Boards. He appealed to the representatives of the UK's largest companies traded on the stock exchange (FTSE 350) to strengthen the representation of women on their boards to 25% by 2015. The top hundred companies (FTSE 100) were expected to fill 25% of positions with women, not only in top management but also in the whole organization.
According to research by Cranfield University, women represented only 135 (12.5%) out of 1,076 directorships in top management positions in hundreds of the UK's largest companies (FTSE 100) in 2010. Today the People Management server states that it is 17.4%.
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