Agencies and suppliers which bid for Government contracts could soon be forced to hand over data on how many women they employ if Vince Cable’s women in business champion, MP Lorely Burt, gets her way.
In the “Burt Report: Inclusive Support for Women in Enterprise”, published by the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills, Burt outlined several suggestions to tackle the issue of male-dominated businesses and encourage more female entrepreneurs.
It suggested that the Government could introduce a new question like: “Is your company 51% or more women or woman-owned, controlled and managed?” on its Pre-Qualification Questionnaire (PQQ) forms that all firms bidding for work over the value of £25,000 must complete. This data could help guide government policy, the report suggests.
It stated that while care must be taken not to over-burden firms with excessive paperwork, the dreaded procurement process “is potentially a powerful tool for data gathering”.
Procurement is considered a powerful tool to promote diversity by larger private firms such as IBM, the report stated, but when diversity is ignored procurement can have the opposite effect.
“Cautious procurement officials focus on price and stick to trusted suppliers. There may be a fear of moving out of the ‘comfort zone’ which unintentionally locks out more diverse suppliers. This can lead to a form of unconscious bias, in which well-intentioned procurement officials tend to buy from suppliers who look like them.
“With more complete data on procurement, the Government could introduce a similar aspiration to procure from a representative percentage of women-led enterprises and other under-represented groups.”
