Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans the Cabinet Office has to improve gender balance on its board.

The Cabinet Office Board is composed of Cabinet Office Ministers, senior officials and non-executives in line with the cross-government code of governance good practice and the Ministerial Code

The department has recently completed a round of non-executive recruitment, and diversity was taken into account as part of that process. Catherine Brown, Paul Kirby and Mark Price joined Amy Stirling (who chairs the Audit and Risk Subcommittee), Ian Davis and Sir Ian Cheshire as the Board's non-executive members. Of the current non-executives, 33% are female. This will rise to 40% when Ian Davis leaves the Board later in the year. Gender balance and diversity will also be taken into account in any future non-executive recruitment rounds

Her Majesty’s Government is also working to improve diversity at senior levels of the Civil Service. In September 2014 we published the Hay Group's 'Women in Whitehall: culture, leadership, talent' report which investigated the barriers faced by talented women developing their careers as Senior Civil Servants. Our response, the Talent Action Plan, introduced a series of new measures to ensure the Civil Service is among the most female-friendly employers in the country, and the most talented people succeed and reach the top positions, regardless of gender, ethnicity, sexuality or disability.