A POSITIVE discrimination pledge designed to get more women into top jobs has been criticised by Cumbria council pension chiefs.

The Border to Coast Pensions Partnership wanted to see the county council’s Pension Committee adopt a raft of measures as part of a “responsible investment policy”.

Among the targets in the guidelines is a refusal to work with organisations in which under 30 per cent of the directors serving on the board were female.

Climate change, diversity and the gender pay gap were among the issues that the Partnership felt needed to be included in the draft rule book.

But several members of the committee felt that the guidelines were “too proscriptive” and that their primary focus should be to get on with the business of managing the fund in the best interests of the people paying into it.

James Airey, Conservative Group Leader, said that candidates should be chosen on the basis of merit not gender.

He added: “The fact that we are having this conversation shows that we have stepped over the line a bit.

“It’s about the performance of the fund – I think that with this we are straying into dangerous territory and it does make me wonder where we are going to end up.”

Gillian Troughton, district council representative for Copeland, said more needed to be done to get women in top jobs.

But she also stressed that the target was “very harsh” on those who were working to increase the female quota on the board of directors.

She said: “It doesn’t make any allowance for direction of travel [for increasing the number of women] and I think the wording needs to be changed.”

The job of the Cumbria Pensions Committee is to manage the Local Government Pension Scheme on behalf of the county council which is the “administering body.”

The fund has 50,000 members, with around 18,000 pensioners on the pay roll.

There are 127 employers from the local government sector paying into the fund, including district councils.