The Ethics Institute published the Social and Ethics Committee Trends Survey Report for 2022
The third edition of The Social and Ethics Committee (SEC) Trends Survey was jointly conducted by The Ethics Institute and the Institute of Directors in South Africa and published in October 2022.
The current edition of the SEC Trends Survey provides insight into the nature, composition, effectiveness, but also challenges and impediments of the SEC.
The requirement for a Social and Ethics Committee was first introduced in the 2008 Companies Act of South Africa. The detail about the mandate, membership and powers of the committee were provided in the Companies Regulations (2011), and on 1 May 2012 it became mandatory for certain categories of companies to have a Social and Ethics Committee (SEC).
The SEC Trends Survey Report is composed of five sections:
Section 1 provides an overview of the sample characteristics with special emphasis on how gender and ethnicity data compare to other board committees. Furthermore, this section provides a descriptive overview of the SECs sampled.
Section 2 looks closely at the characteristics of SECs operating in South Africa such as what SECs are named, what are the reasons for their establishment, whether they are standalone committees, and how they interact with other committees and operational structures in organisations.
Section 3 explores more closely the issues in which SECs invest most of their time and energy, providing an indication of the priorities of the SECs operating in South Africa and how closely these priorities are aligned with the mandate of the SEC.
Section 4 focuses on some vital statistics of SECs, such as the average membership, number of meetings per year, as well as the perceived impact of SECs.
Section 5 addresses the challenges and impediments faced by SECs, that is, what aspects of their functioning may impede the primary mandate of the SEC.
Finally, Section 6 of this report provides some overarching conclusions related to the findings of this survey.
Read the survey report here.
