Trade Secretary Patricia Hewitt today hosts a business meeting to reveal the government’s latest plans to try and improve boardroom diversity. She will make her comments today at the launch of a new guide, produced by the Institute of Directors (IOD), Building Better Boards.

“It’s not about putting women on boards for the sake of it. We want companies to promote the best people but with almost a third of companies without a single woman on board, my concern is that companies are not drawing from all the available talent,” commented Miss Hewitt.

Miss Hewitt is trying to get corporate Britain to follow the government’s lead as they attempt to appoint women and people from ethnic minorities to senior positions. The guide aims to set out a business case to show companies that more diversity in the boardroom is good for business.

A Cranfield School of Management study has show that almost one in five appointments went to women this year, compared to one in ten two years ago. Women, however, remain woefully under-represented in the boardroom. The accounting firm Deloitte found that among the top 350 firms, women make up only 3% of executive-directors and 8% of non-executives.

Patricia Peter, head of corporate governance at the IOD, said:

“Prosperous and well-run companies need the best boards with the most appropriate people on them. Ignoring those from diverse backgrounds denies a large pool of talent. In particular, boardroom Britain has to reflect the major contribution women are making in organisations at middle and senior management level.”

The paucity of women at the top is revealed by corporate governance experts Manifest: Their research shows that only one woman chairs a FTSE 100 Company –Baroness Hogg at venture capital firm 3i – and one female chief executive in the FTSE - Dame Marjorie at Pearson.

Director General of Confederation of British Industry (CBI), Digby Jones, adds:

“It’s important that boards, beside having the right skills, reflect their organisations, their customers and the communities they serve as well as possible. That means achieving active, non-tokenist and competent diversity.”