Reports

Each year the Women’s Business Council has published a report demonstrating the council’s progress and influence. These reports have included case studies and guides for employers looking at removing the barriers to female success and aspiration.

In 2018, the WBC looked back on five years of progress since their inaugural report, celebrating the successes made to date against their five key workstrands: Starting Out, Getting On, Staying On, Enterprise and Men as Change Agents for Gender Equality. 

In 2017, the WBC expanded their activity to champion best practice from business to business through a suite of practical toolkits and awareness raising activities such as the Men as Change Agents Powerlist event sponsored by Management Today, shining a spotlight on 30 influential leaders for gender equality in the workplace.

This year, the WBC are delighted to work in partnership with government to deliver new funding priorities and following the announcement of a £5million fund to help people return to the workplace in the public sector, will be showcasing best practice in the private sector. 

The WBC was expanded in 2016 to encompass industries such as engineering, manufacturing and construction, where women are significantly under- represented at senior levels. The WBC is delighted to secure the support of academics, industry representatives across STEM, colleges and government officials to the Starting Out Action Group to lever change.

Over the last two years, the Women’s Business Council has had a single focus: ensuring the world of business, across all sectors, continued to embrace the recommendations we made in 2012 and invest in the power of women.

We’ve worked hard to use our positions as business practitioners and leaders to push for change. Through our engagement we have reached millions of people across the country – and I am tremendously proud that these efforts are paying off and we are starting to see real progress.

In 2013, the Women’s Business Council devised and published a strategy which sought to capitalise on the skills and talents of women.

This strategy formed part of a larger initiative to support long-term UK economic growth and was derived, in the main, from one simple observation: the existence of a vast pool of untapped female talent, something which collectively had the potential to drive significant economic growth.

This document sets out how the government will take forward the WBC full report findings and recommendations through a number of actions:

The Government response to the full report published by the Women's Business Council, commissioned by the Government Equalities Office.

The Women’s Business Council was set up in 2012 to advise Government on how women’s contribution to growth can be optimised. Our aim has been to focus on areas with the greatest potential economic benefit and on recommendations with a clear economic case for action.