Following its initial report in 2016, the Parker Review Committee published its five-year update last month. The 2016 report set a “At Least One by ‘21” target, imposing a deadline for all FTSE 100 companies to have at least one individual from an ethnic minority appointed to their board by the end of 2021. So how did they do?
As at December 2021, 89 of the FTSE 100 companies had met that target. An additional five appointments have been announced since this time, with three further companies currently in recruitment processes. It is therefore anticipated that as of May 2022, 94% of FTSE 100 companies will be complying with the target.
The same target was set for FTSE 250 companies but with a deadline of December 2024. With two years and nine months to go, 55% have now met this target.
However, the report goes on to note that most of these board positions are non-executive directors (NEDs), with only six CEOs, three chairs and 12 other executive directors within the FTSE 100 coming from an ethnic minority group. Similar trends can be seen amongst the FTSE 250 statistics, with the vast majority of positions being NEDs but with 13 CEOs and five chairs from minority ethnic groups. In summary, 16% of all FTSE 100 board positions and 10% of all FTSE 250 board positions are currently held by minority ethnic directors.
While the Parker Review regards this as good progress and an important step forward, it continues to stress to boards that the targets set should not be considered as “one and done”. The report stresses that companies should continue to expand the scale and depth of initiatives fostering diversity and inclusion throughout all levels and focus on diversity when recruiting at all levels with the objective of creating sustainable pipelines of ethnically diverse talent.
In particular, further recommendations for measuring board-level diversity have been provided, including encouraging reporting of ethnic diversity of boards and reporting ethnic diversity policies and activities.
It is hoped that this focus will lead to a true difference being made with barriers being brought down and prejudice being removed, whether conscious or not.
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