Government must recruit from more diverse talent pool

Government recruiters will be made to present more diverse fields of candidates in future, the trade and industry secretary has announced.

After research revealed a third of the UK’s leading companies still have no women on their boards, Patricia Hewitt said the Govern-ment needed to look at its own record on senior appointments.

“Just as businesses should cast their net widely to get the best people onto their boards, so should the Government,” she said.

“We want to lead by example, so I am announcing that government headhunters, who recruit for most of the 4,000 vacancies a year across Government, will have a new requirement to present more diverse fields of candidates.”

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Although many companies still lack female presence in the boardroom, there has been a marked improvement, the Female FTSE Report 2004 found.

Almost one in five boardroom appointments went to women this year – up from one in 10 two years ago, it said.