Public Appointments Reception at Admiralty House

The Cabinet Office organised another highly successful reception to encourage more women to consider a Public Appointment.  

A number of Pink Shoe members joined the event which was an ideal opportunity for those actively interested in a role in public life to hear from women already holding an appointment. 

PSC was glad to be joined by graduates of its pilot Public Appointments Shadowing Programme; and delighted that Francis Maude made reference to Pink Shoe Club in his opening remarks.

The Q&A with the Minister was an open forum and it was encouraging to hear the positive progress being made. 








Francis Maude demonstrated the genuine passion and determination of Government to continue growing the numbers of women in public life – women getting there on merit rather than via artificial quotas.

Pink Shoe Ambassador Susan Greenwood also raised the question of people with disability gaining greater numbers of Public Appointments, an area the Minister recognised as equally important and upon which there is strong resolve to improve.

UK Economic Blueprint for Women

The UK Economic Blueprint for Women is being developed by the Pink Shoe Senate under the guidance of WIPP International and with key Pink Shoe participants, corporate partners and other organisations such as the Royal Society of Arts and WEConnect. It has strong support from MPs, Peers and Ministers – and via the All Party Parliamentary Group for Entrepreneurship and other leading All-Party groups.

Excellent progress was made at the first General Meeting of the Economic Blueprint Task Force.  From all 14 participants there was huge enthusiasm, lots of great ideas and recognition of all the time and effort involved to make this work and the commitment to deliver all that's required.

As agreed in November at the House of Lords, for Stage I of the Blueprint we have set up a Taskforce to action ideas from the FQ conference. These cover each of the key areas, with the creation of separate groups for research and training:

Fair Access to Capital – chaired by Elspeth Openshaw

Fair Access to Markets – chaired by Jenny Wardle

Fair Access to Research – chaired by Ishreen Bradley

Fair Access to Training – chaired by Vanda Green

With their teams, the 4 chairmen are preparing an initial strategy document with summary of actions for their taskforce. At the next meeting co-chairs will be elected and additional members recruited. Jill and Helene are floating members for the groups.