Compliance with the UK corporate governance code among FTSE 350 companies has improved this year, but governance and reporting remains “patchy”
According to Grant Thornton’s (GT) corporate governance review, 66% of the 350 biggest UK companies declared full compliance, up 4% from last year.
However, only 33% of the FTSE 350 provided informative insights, down from 64% in 2014.
The report found that longer-term viability statements, internal control reporting and gender diversity had seen little improvement since last year, while investor engagement continues to decline.
Moreover, only 12.5% of the FTSE 350 reported that the remuneration chair held face-to-face meetings with shareholders regarding executive remuneration.
Grant Thornton also revealed diversity in the boardroom still lacked improvement, with only 26% of FTSE 100 board roles filled by women and 77% of the FTSE 100 and 85% of the FTSE 250 without a woman in an executive role.
The report also found improvements in culture-related reporting, with 39% of companies now providing a strong overview of the culture of their organisation, up from 20% last year.
But GT said it was “disappointing” that only 29% of CEOs made personal reference to culture in their opening statements despite the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) recently highlighting the role’s importance in setting and embedding a company’s culture.
For the UK economy to thrive post-Brexit then companies needed to ensure they were complying with governance requirements.
