FTSE bosses criticised over excuses for lack of women in boardrooms

According to some executives of the UK’s biggest firms, women are not a good fit in boardrooms since most don’t want the responsibility of a big job and don’t understand such complex issues that are discussed at board meetings.

After it emerged that 10 of the biggest companies in the country do not have a single female board member, the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills asked companies for reasons for the lack of women in their boardrooms. Reasons given in response included:

• "I don’t think women fit comfortably into the board environment"
• "There aren’t that many women with the right credentials and depth of experience to sit on the board - the issues covered are extremely complex"
• "Most women don’t want the hassle or pressure of sitting on a board"
• "Shareholders just aren’t interested in the make-up of the board, so why should we be?"
• "My other board colleagues wouldn’t want to appoint a woman on our board"
• "All the ‘good’ women have already been snapped up"
• "We have one woman already on the board, so we are done - it is someone else’s turn"
• "There aren’t any vacancies at the moment - if there were I would think about appointing a woman"
• "We need to build the pipeline from the bottom - there just aren’t enough senior women in this sector"
• "I can’t just appoint a woman because I want to"

Business minister Andrew Griffiths said that the comments were "pitiful and patronising".

Amanda Mackenzie, chief executive of Business in the Community, said: "As you read this list of excuses, you might think it’s 1918, not 2018. It reads like a script from a comedy parody, but it’s true. Surely we can now tackle this once and for all. Maybe those that give credence to these excuses are the ones that are not up to sitting on boards and should move over: we are in the 21st century after all."