This year saw a rise in full compliance with the U.K. Corporate Governance Code among FTSE 350 companies to a new high of 62 percent, up from 57 percent in 2015, according to Grant Thornton’s 15th Corporate Governance Review. Areas of greatest non-compliance were centered around the independence of directors and chairs. The Code requires half the board, excluding the chair, to be independent non-executive directors (NEDs), but 9.4 percent of the FTSE 350 do not comply with this provision. In addition, non-compliance with the requirement for an independent chair actually went up to 6.5 percent, from 4.8 percent in 2015. More importantly, however, 90 percent of the FTSE 350 comply with all but one or two provisions. Other areas of non-compliance were failure to meet audit or remuneration committee membership criteria. On the other hand, compliance is still low in both 2015 and 2016 for new entrants to the FTSE 350.
