November 2016 – The Government has launched a Green Paper on corporate governance reform. In particular it covers executive pay and shareholder/member/employee influence on corporate governance.
Your response to this consultation in regard to building societies is most important because of the tricks that are used in ballots and the disconnect between boardroom pay and that of the staff.
This Green Paper seeks views on three areas where we want to consider options for updating our corporate governance framework:
• First, on shareholder influence on executive pay, which has grown much faster over the last two decades than pay generally and than typical corporate performance;
• Second, on whether there are measures that could increase the connection between boards of directors and other groups with an interest in corporate performance such as employees and small suppliers; and
• Third, whether some of the features of corporate governance that have served us well in our listed companies should be extended to the largest privately-held companies at a time in which different types of ownership are more common.
Contributions from everyone are invited, particularly from employees, from consumers, shareholders and communities, those who are affected by business.
How to respond
Your response will be most useful if it is framed in direct response to the questions posed, though further comments and evidence are also welcome.
Respondents are invited to comment on some or all of the questions summarised in Section 3.
Responses can be submitted in three ways:
(i) By e-mail to corporategovernance@beis.gov.uk;
(ii) Via Citizens Space accessible at: https://beisgovuk.citizenspace.com/strategy/corporate-governance-reform; or
(iii) In hard copy to the correspondence address above.
The closing date for submissions is 17th February 2017.