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Six out of 10 of Britain’s largest companies are failing to hit a government target for hiring female directors, new government data revealed on Thursday.
The figure has emerged within the latest report on how UK businesses are progressing towards a Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) target for 25% of FTSE 100 directors to be female by next year.
The goal, set during Lord Davies’ review of women on boards in 2011, stated: “FTSE 100 boards should aim for a minimum of 25% female representation by 2015 and we expect that many will achieve a higher figure”.
However, with less than three months of 2014 remaining, 61 of the FTSE 100 have still to reach 25%, including some of the index’s largest firms. They include: Reckitt Benckiser, the household products group behind brands such as Dettol and Vanish; the oil giant BP; and the commodity trading firm Glencore.
The news came as BIS said that 22.8% of directors of FTSE 100 companies are now female, up from 20.7% in March. The statistics represent increases from 12.5% when Davies launched his report in 2011 and 17.3% in April 2013. However, the overall figure is boosted by women in part-time roles, with 27.9% of FTSE 100 non-executive directors being women, compared with the 8.4% in executive directorships.
The business Secretary Vince Cable said: “Although our target is in sight, we must keep up the momentum. All companies with fewer than 25% of women on their board need to take firm action now to increase female representation.”
Apart from the sluggish progress in the FTSE 100, the picture is bleaker within the second division FTSE 250. There, women’s representation in boardrooms has increased to 17.4% – up from 15.6% in March 2014, with the figures depressed by 29 FTSE 250 firms having no female directors at all. The companies that retain all male boards include: retailer JD Sports; the pub group Enterprise Inns; and the insurer Brit.
Lord Davies added: “Having reached a position where it is unacceptable for the voice of women to be absent from the boardroom, it is disappointing to see there are still 29 all-male boards in the FTSE 250. Every single company needs to address the issue of gender balance in the boardroom and make sure they support UK business in our collective goal.”
While the numbers of women in top UK boardrooms have been increasing slowly, there are many men and women in the City who categorise the Davies report as a success as it has kick-started progress towards greater equality in the workplace.
The new figures have been published just days after Cable said he was preparing to launch a review into the lack of ethnic minority directors in Britain’s boardrooms, in a move that closely mirrors the work undertaken by Lord Davies on female directors. It also follows Royal Bank of Scotland saying it is considering introducing targets for the number of senior female employees in an attempt to address the gender imbalance at the group. Alison Rose, head of commercial and private banking at RBS, said she supported the idea of “aspirational targets” for the bank.
The government’s figures were also published alongside similar research showing that UK companies are among the world’s most frequent employers of female directors.
The report, from headhunters Egon Zehnder, placed the UK joint fourth in a global league table showing countries with the highest proportion of female directors, from a sample of 1,000 companies in more than 40 countries. Norway topped the list with 38%, followed by France with 28.5%, Sweden 27.5% and the UK and Australia on 22.6%.
