Scope of the Bill
The Gender Representation on Public Boards (Scotland) Bill contains 13 sections and 2 schedules –
Section 1: sets a gender representation objective for a public board that it has 50% of non-executive members who are women;
Section 2: Defines the Bill’s key terms – “appointing person”, “excluded position”, “non-executive member”, “public authority” and “public board”;
Sections 3 and 4: set out the steps to be taken when appointing non-executive members and how candidates should be considered;
Section 5: places a requirement on appointing persons and public authorities to take such steps as they consider appropriate to encourage women to apply to become non-executive members of public boards;
Section 6: places a general duty on appointing persons and public authorities to take such steps as they consider appropriate with a view to achieving the gender representation objective by 31 December 2022...