The NAPF encourages the government to proceed with the introduction of new requirements for companies to reporting on their gender pay gaps. We also encourage the government to give further thought to how it can enhance the quality of company reporting on their use of human capital more widely.

In the UK there are firms which have already seized the initiative and have been willing to be much more transparent in this area, however, these are the minority. These disclosures could enable investors to ask more questions of companies in order to understand how opportunities for development and growth are grasped however; the issue of diversity should not be seen in isolation and the objective should be to provide investors, and wider stakeholders, with a clearer line of sight into how a company’s workforce is composed, nurtured and motivated and subsequently how stable and productive it is in order to inform judgements on the sustainability of the operation. Consistency of disclosures on both inputs and outputs will be crucial to enabling more investors to give this area more scrutiny.