Diversity – But at What Cost?

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) have published a public consultation on “Diversity and inclusion on company boards and executive committees”. This summer I seen to be spending a lot of my time responding to FCA consultations and this one seems to yet another that will impose costs on publicly listed companies with no clear benefit while diverting management time. As I pointed out in my response to the Primary Markets Effectiveness Review, the imposition of more corporate governance regulations is one reason why public listings are falling as company management decide that it’s easier to remain private. That is the negative outcome of over-regulation.

What’s the latest consultation proposing? They propose to change the Listing Rules so as to “require companies to disclose publicly in their annual financial report whether they meet specific board diversity targets relating to gender and ethnicity on a ‘comply or explain’ basis”.

They also propose that companies publish standardised data on the composition of their board and the senior levels of executive management by gender and ethnic background; and to encourage a broader consideration of diversity at board level, they are also proposing to amend the corporate governance rules to expand reporting requirements to wider diversity characteristics. This could include ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability and socio-economic background.

They may also “seek to widen the scope of the targets to levels below executive management”, i.e. This means not just the board and top management will be covered in future.

In the short term the rules will require:

• At least 40% of the board should be women (including those self-identifying as women).
• At least one of the senior board positions (Chair, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Senior Independent Director (SID) or Chief Financial Officer (CFO)) should be a woman (including those self-identifying as a woman).
• At least one member of the board should be from a non-White ethnic minority background.

Although there is wide acceptance that more diversity on some boards may be preferable. By avoiding the all-white, male and elderly boards that were so common in the past, one can ensure more understanding of the modern world. And it is certainly the case that there may be some social justice in avoiding unfair discrimination against some characteristics. But is there any evidence that more diverse boards actually improve company performance?

The FCA report covers this issue in Section 3.27 onwards where they review the evidence. The evidence is not clear so they say: “Our own literature review of academic and other research published alongside our DP concludes that, overall, the empirical evidence for the impact of diverse workforces and boards on financial performance is inconclusive”. In essence the imposition of more regulation in this area may have no benefit while the disadvantages of loading management with extra responsibilities is ignored.

What concerns me most is that instead of picking the best candidates for board or senior management positions, they may be selected based on sex or ethnicity, i.e. there will be discrimination against others, which is of course illegal.

There is also a rather peculiar focus on factors that have no obvious relevance to fitness for a role. One of the oddities of public companies is that anyone with no qualifications or experience can be appointed. There is no requirement to have a business or accounting qualification. No requirement to know the basics of company law or to have had any training for the role of being a company director. Is this not most perverse?

For example I have attended several General Meetings of companies in the past where it was clear that the directors did not understand the basics of company law.

You also get peculiar results at present where the keenness to appoint more females results in some directors with little obvious qualifications for anything. They tend to end up chairing remuneration committees for example where they are dominated by executive management.

Would it not be preferable to regulate to ensure directors had basic competence in law and finance rather than happening to have the right skin colour? That is likely to be much more effective in improving company performance.

One of the most laughable aspects of the proposed new regime is that to meet the new rules on gender diversity all that needs to be done is for a current male member to “self-identify” as female. Will management be required to inquire into the details of sexual orientation when recruiting?

If we are going to start regulating management composition based on their characteristics, should we also not be ensuring a balance of ages, heights, physical fitness (no fatties allowed) or other relevant characteristics?

There are better alternatives to improving the diversity of boards other than using quotas. Education and structured experience programmes are more likely to produce a better outcome.

In summary I suggest this proposal is a complete nonsense and should be withdrawn. Readers should submit their own responses to the consultation to avoid responses being biased by the thoughts of those who wish to be politically correct.

You can see my detailed responses to the consultation questions here: https://www.roliscon.com/Diversity-Consultation-Response.pdf  

FCA Paper: Diversity and inclusion on company boards and executive committees. Consultation Paper CP21/24: https://www.fca.org.uk/publication/consultation/cp21-24.pdf

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson  )

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