Watching the watchmen

Interesting contribution from Hermes to the debate about the ISC's new statement. They make the useful point that it should not be up to the ISC itself to assess how well its members' members are doing in meeting the ISC statement of principles when it becomes a code -

Colin Melvin, chief executive of Hermes Equity Ownership Services, which provides governance services for investors with £50bn ($81.7bn) of assets, told the Financial Times that the monitoring role should be transferred to an independent body.

The current investment governance framework, he added, “is equivalent to giving the CBI onfederation of British Industry responsibility for the Combined Code on corporate governance”.

Quite right. The only thing I would add is that the ISC's track record doesn't inspire confidence either. It's now two years since the ISC published its framework on voting disclosure, but it still has produced no analysis of how it has worked in practice, despite being asked by Ed Balls to do so.