In 2008 just 33.3% of public appointments were women. Over many years the WNC has worked to improve women's representation in public life. We feel that representation on public bodies should aim to reflect society as a whole and include people from all parts of the community, all walks of life and those with a wide range of skills and experiences. The figures make clear that many public bodies are still not benefiting from the different perspectives that women bring to the decision making process.

The increasingly high number of women with power and status in public life today do not speak solely or even largely on behalf of all women - but women's experiences as women, their perspectives and their voices can and do inform the way they do things. They are vital in ensuring that women in society have their views reflected. Women are not all the same and do not speak with one voice. So it is important that women of all backgrounds play a part - women of faith; women of no faith; women from different ethnic groups; disabled women; lesbians; younger and older women. Statistics collated by the Government Equalities Office (GEO) show continuing low rates of representation of women in public bodies.

 Women's Representation in politics across the UK - an overview

·     19.7% House of Lords Peers
·     0.3% Ethnic Minority Women Members of Parliament
·     34% All Ministers
·     26% Cabinet Ministers
·     19.3% Members of Parliament
·     33% Members of Scottish Parliament
·     46.7% Welsh Assembly Members
·     26% Members of European Parliament
·     0.9% Ethnic Minority women councillors

Women's Representation in Other Public Bodies

·     9.26% High Court Judges
·     8% University Vice-Chancellors
·     30% Police Authority board members

The Speaker’s Conference on Parliamentary Representation was established by the House of Commons to look into the reasons why there are not more women, disabled people and people from ethnic minority communities in the House of Commons. The Speaker’s Conference launched an online forum on 12 May, seeking views from the public on the following questions: 

Why do people think that to succeed in public life they have to hide aspects of themselves?
What would persuade you to represent your community? 
What is the best way to increase the representation of under-represented communities at Westminster?

The forum can be accessed here or via the main website. It ran until 23 June 2009.
Comments from the forum were considered by the Conference as it looked to find practical ways to tackle under-representation. 

The Speaker’s Conference was convened under the leadership of the Speaker, Mr Michael J Martin.  Its membership was as follows: Miss Anne Begg (Vice-Chairman), Ms Diane Abbott, John Bercow, Mr David Blunkett, Angela Browning, Mr Ronnie Campbell, Mrs Ann Cryer, Mr Parmjit Dhanda, Andrew George, Miss Julie Kirkbride, Dr William McCrea, David Maclean, Fiona Mactaggart, Mr Khalid Mahmood, Anne Main, Jo Swinson and Mrs Betty Williams.  It had to:

 A Speaker’s Conference has been established from time to time to investigate issues relating to the franchise and electoral law.

Operation Black Vote and the Government Equalities Office Black Asian Minority Ethnic Women Councillor Shadowing Scheme

http://www.obv.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=category§ionid=17&id=132&Itemid=149 

The representation of Black and other minority ethnic (BAME) women at every level of governance from the Houses of Parliament to local government is markedly low. Of the 646 MPs in Westminster, two are BAME women and out of 20,000 Councillors, 149 are BAME women.  This represents less than 1% of Councillors nationally.  

On 24^th April, Operation Black Vote launched the country’s first national BAME Councillor Shadowing Scheme; applications were accepted until 31st July.  The scheme invites 50 women from BAME communities across the country to take part in a ground-breaking leadership programme, which is designed to encourage them to find out about the wide-ranging role of councillors. 

The project aims to demystify the role of councillors and open up the process to allow greater diversity and to help tackle the under-representation of BAME women within the UK’s elected Council Chambers.

The WNC are delighted to announce that its newly updated Women in Public Life Today: A Revised Guide has now been published.

The 2009 Revised Guide builds and expands on the document produced in 2004, explaining how women can become active in public life and why their representation is so important.  It contains information about various public bodies and advice about how to apply for positions.  Furthermore, the Guide profiles a number of women from various backgrounds who are holders of public appointments.  They share their experiences, routes to public life and offer suggestions about how to overcome any barriers that women might encounter along the way.   Their examples demonstrate that women from a variety of backgrounds and regions can use their skills and experiences to make a valuable contribution through a public appointment.  This is especially important in light of the persistently low figure for women’s representation in public office, which still stands at less than 35%.   

We therefore hope that this Guide will encourage other women to use their wealth of talent and experience to make their voices heard. 

We hope that you find the Guide a useful and informative tool for encouraging more women to become involved in public life.  We would also welcome feedback on the Guide; send any comments to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Click here to download the Guide.