UK Minister Vows to Push for Women on Boards - Building Gender Balanced Business

• The British Equality Minister Harriet Harman plans to push companies to end gender imbalances in board rooms, calling the large number of men-only boards a “nightmare”.

• While she ruled out Norwegian-style quotas for boardrooms, the Labour minister did say that if there was no improvement the government would “have to look at different steps”. “We’re very clear that we need to make progress,” she told a Parliamentary committee.

• Only when a “critical mass” of women reaches board-level positions, Harman said, will the current “old boys’ network” in the City end. “When the numbers change you will see the climate change,”

• Harman also noted that companies with more than 250 employees would be required to disclose average pay for male and female employees. The government has decided to wait until at least 2013 to impose mandatory pay audits allowed under the equality bill passed earlier in 2009.

• She also vowed to use decisions on government contracts as a lever to fight sex discrimination, The Financial Times reported.

• Harman has made similar calls before. In May 2009, she called for more women on bank boards, warning, “Sometimes we have to take scary methods in order to achieve worthwhile results.”

The Daily Telegraph article