Total of women on Australian government boards slips for second year
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Version 0 of 1. The proportion of women on Australian government boards has slipped for the second year in a row, remaining just below the gender diversity target of 40%. According to the Gender Balance on Australian Government Boards 2014-15 report, released on Thursday, 39.1% of all board positions relating to federal government portfolios are filled by women, down from 39.7% in 2013-14 and 41.7% in 2012-13. Related: Superannuation investors push for more women on ASX 200 boards That slip could be caused, in part, by a reduction in the number of board positions available. There were 2,570 positions on 361 government boards as of 1 July 2015, a reduction of 36% from the 4,039 positions available on 460 boards two years ago. Amy Mullins, executive director of the Women’s Leadership Institute Australia, said it was concerning to see the proportion of women on boards go backwards and it highlighted the need for greater transparency in recruiting – a measure which is included in legislation proposed by the South Australian independent senator Nick Xenophon. Ten of 18 federal government portfolios met the Australian government’s 40:40:20 target, which stipulates boards should be made up of 40% men and 40% women with the remaining 20% unallocated, to give some flexibility in the case of smaller boards or specialised skillsets that restrict recruitment. Under that standard, the social affairs portfolio performed best, followed by immigration, where women filled 53.1% and 50% of all board positions respectively. Human services had so many women that it did not meet the target of 40% men, who made up just 33.3% of its board appointments. “That is just as concerning as not meeting the target for women,” Mullins told Guardian Australia. “It’s not about women versus men, or saying we should focus on women more, although obviously women do have more difficulties because the system is against them. “But the point of diversity and gender balance is that it gets the best outcome. If you have all women or all men or a disproportionate number of either then you are not going to get the diversity of views.” Mullins said the lack of clarity around the leadership of boards was also of concern. The report says 30% of chair and deputy chair positions are occupied by women but does not break that figure down further to detail what percentage of boards are chaired by women. Employment, the senior portfolio held as of last month by the minister for women, Michaelia Cash, was the second-worst performing portfolio, with only 24.1% of its 58 board positions occupied by women, just up from the Department of Veterans Affairs which had 23.7% women. Of the 13 people appointed to employment boards last year, just three – or 23.1% – were women. Cash hosted a women in leadership roundtable in Melbourne on Thursday. In a statement she said the government was committed to practical measures to promote gender diversity and announced $100,000 would go to scholarships for women in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, run by the Chief Executive Women organisation. She also named new women as “champions” of the BoardLinks program, a database of capable and qualified women, each nominated by a champion, to overcome the oft-quoted refrain that boards are dominated by men because recruiters could not find suitable women. “We know organisations perform better with a more diverse leadership team – the evidence is irrefutable in relation to the financial benefits that gender diversity can bring,” Cash said. Related: Want to pretend you're a feminist but do nothing? Talk about women on boards | Eleanor Robertson “Gender diversity in senior leadership results in more representative decision-making and enhances an organisation’s ability to deliver value to its clients. This holds true across both business and government.” But business appears to be lagging further behind. An analysis of the board positions on ASX 200 companies by the diversity and productivity researcher Conrad Liveris found that only 24.8% of the 130 appointments to boards between 1 January 2015 and 1 October 2015 were women. Business has set itself a 30% target. Liveris blamed the “resiliently male” culture that he said remained in many corporations. In February he found there were more men named Peter at the heads of ASX companies than there were women. “If they really do want to do something and fix these figures, they can,” he said. “It’s just not as hard as they are making it out to be. These are matters of will, not matters of technical competency or availability.” |