Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what proportion of people appointed to public bodies are women.
The Government is committed to increasing the diversity of public appointments and has an aspiration that 50% of new public appointees should be women. We are making good progress, with 44% of new appointments made to women in 2014-2015, up from 39% the previous year. For many years, the figure on appointments was between 32-36%, 44% is the highest figure since records began.