Corporate governance reform

Overview

For Britain to thrive in a global economy, businesses need to focus on long-term value creation and command public confidence and respect. But for people to retain faith in capitalism and free markets, big business must earn and keep the trust and confidence of their customers, employees and the wider public. Where this social contract breaks down and individual businesses decide to play by their own rules, faith in the business community as a whole diminishes – to the detriment of all.

Why your views matter

The aim of this consultation is for government to have an open discussion with business, investors and the public about what needs to be done. This is an important task, and one where both the government and big business must rise to the challenge of restoring faith in what they do, and in the power of the market economy to deliver growth, opportunity and choice for all.

The paper looks for views on:

• executive pay
• employee and customer voice
• corporate governance in large private businesses

How to Respond

Contributions from everyone are invited, particularly from employees, those who contribute to business activity, and from consumers, shareholders and communities, those who are affected by business, as well as from current and future business leaders.

To encourage responses from a wide range of people we have developed a high level set of questions as well as the detailed questions in the green paper.  We have allowed respondents to select their level of interest and the level of detail they want to explore on each topic.