Recommendation 18

We questioned the witnesses about their current approach to diversity. The Government’s Lead Non-Executive noted that he thought the only target that would make sense in the long-run would be a 50% split of gender between men and women.34 The Cabinet Office told us that currently 48% of NEDs in post are women. The Cabinet Office also told us that the most recent numbers showed 14.5% of appointments made in the year were to people identifying as from an ethnic minority, slightly below the corresponding 15% of the economically active population.35 The witnesses told us that they were also focused on increased diversity of thought, regional diversity, and social background. When we queried what data they used to measure diversity of background and what data they held on disability, the Government’s Lead Non-Executive noted that government did not hold this data for all NEDs because the system to collect the data was not in place for the entire population of current NEDs.36