We’ve just received legal advice to the effect that the UK government lacks the legal ‘competence’ to legislate for gender quotas on UK corporate boards, from which it follows that the threat to FTSE100 companies is a hollow one. I’ve just emailed the following ‘open letter’ with a Freedom of Information Act request to Vince Cable, Business Secretary, along with the most senior civil servant concerned with this area, Helen Whitehead:

121203 open letter emailed to Vince Cable

[Update, 19.12.12]

The following letter has just been received:

121219 letter from DBIS

To my mind the most significant passage in the letter is the following:

We have not received any legal advice concerning the legal competence (or lack of it) of the Government to legislate for gender quotas on UK corporate boards.

It’s clear that the government’s threat to legislate for gender quotas on FTSE100 boards if the companies don’t ‘voluntarily’ achieve 25% female representation by 2015 is a hollow one, and we’ll be informing senior business people of this shortly.