PINSTRIPE

Is it just me who is getting fed up with the state and media sponsored onslaught of the promotion of women?

Companies live in fear of a thumping by women’s special interest groups, the media and vote chasing Governments if they don’t work towards “gender balance” on their boards.

The Scottish Government has detected a problem that “only” 45 per cent of board positions on public bodies in Scotland are held by women - frankly the problem is invisible to me - but our beloved Scottish Government wants to legislate to ensure that at least half of the members of public boards are women. So, if there is a board of seven at least four, by law, must be women.

The special quotas for women insult and undermine women of ability but the much greater danger is that it blots out the need for organisations to reach out to other groups. Appoint a couple of middle class women and the nominations committee gets a pat on the back when it perhaps deserves a kick-up the backside. Women have made enormous strides in achieving fairness in the workplace and wider society - there is more to be done but the tide is flowing strongly the right way.

While women have moved forward others, away from the media glare, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds have made much less progress. Women should not be able to elbow their way to a reserved seat while others are left behind.

This is absurd and counter productive. The last thing a talented woman wants is to be appointed to the board of a company or public body because she is a woman rather than because she is the best candidate for the job.

Often self-serving “research” is trotted out to try to prove that companies with more women on their boards do better than those where the board is all male. Could it possibly be that other factors in fact account for this apparent miracle - I am afraid so.

We really should stop to think whether it is right that one highly organised group should be given a special quota on any governing body.

What about other groups who have no special representative rights? They could have just as valid a different view on an issue as women - where are their special rights? What about poorer people, people without qualifications, disabled people, young people? Those who really do have less of a say in business and society than others. Where is their specially reserved quota on every board?

Do not get me wrong, women have suffered injustice in the past but it is not progress to replace historic injustice with unfair privilege. What is important is that corporate and public bodies search far and wide to ensure that they identify and recruit talented people to their boards, not just people like the existing members but people who are different as well as capable, so that we refresh and widen the influences which are brought to bear in governance of public life.

Instead of the crushing dumbness of fixing outcomes through arbitrary quotas Governments should make sure that boards are forced to explain what they have done to ensure that there is equality of opportunity and the achievement of real diversity - not jobs for the girls.

Pinstripe is a senior member of Scotland's financial services community.