CORPORATE GOVERNANCE IN THE UK

UK PLC boards have been living with iterations of the FRC’s Corporate Governance Code for many years – the last major revision being in 2018. With each update, the number of rules and reporting requirements has only gone one way: the 2018 tally stands at 4 Principles, 41 Provisions and numerous detailed sub-provisions. Despite all of this, recent corporate failures have prompted politicians to examine the regulatory framework yet again. The UK Government’s White Paper, published on 18 March 2021, on restoring trust in audit and corporate governance, proposed a new regulator ‘with teeth’ as a successor to the FRC: the Audit Reporting & Governance Authority (AGRA). How much teeth depends on the input from a detailed consultation process that finished on 8 July – and, of course, how much anyone in the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) might really be listening. 

The danger is that by the time the politicians have debated this, the rulebook only gets larger. GOULD CONSULTING decided to test the mood in UK PLC boardrooms. What did chairs and non-executive directors (NEDs) feel about the current arrangements – let alone what may be coming? We surveyed 150 leading FTSE Chairs and NEDs in June 2021 for their views.