Business View: Ling-Ling ... giant pandas ring a bell with the fate of non-executives

It's 30 years since the two giant pandas Chia-Chia and Ling-Ling failed to reproduce after being introduced under a glare of publicity at London Zoo. Tomorrow Derek Higgs will launch a campaign to boost the population of another endangered species, the non-executive director. Harried by increasingly large workloads, criticisms of their ineffectiveness and the looming prospect of being sued for getting things wrong, there is a danger that too few of these ancient beasts will be around to perform the tasks required of them.

In some archaic areas ­ Bradford comes to mind ­ there is still a feeling that non-execs are, as Tiny Rowland famously described them, decorations on a Christmas tree. But in the post-Enron environment, the rest of us have realised that the role of the part-time board member is more and more important as a brake on the excesses of potentially greedy executives.

In the US they decided to legislate about board structures. In the UK we're a bit more nod and wink. The Government asked Mr Higgs, a former merchant banker, to review how best to ensure our board structures are healthy. He is now ready to give his views.

As befits a man with a giant's handful of directorships himself, Mr Higgs has decided against saying how many directorships are too many. This will be a relief to Labour friends such as Lord Marshall and Lord Sharman, who are both well endowed with board memberships. However, Mr Higgs is likely to turn against people taking on too many chairmanships, a ruling that might finally persuade Royal Mail chairman Allan Leighton to decide if he really wants to be on the board of Lastminute, BSkyB and Leeds United as well.

But the most important change Mr Higgs will suggest is to give some tangible support to non-execs. There will be training ­ in telling them what to ask at meetings and in helping them to discharge their duties ­ and insurance which will avoid the risk that they can lose their livelihoods for failing to spot a fraud.

Without this, boardrooms will not get the new blood they need. The CBI reckons that big companies cannot get away with fewer than four independent non-execs these days. And if having more than a handful of directorships is frowned on, this would indicate a need for more than 1,000 non-execs to satisfy the needs of quoted companies.

Given that, let's hope Derek Higgs' non-executive development programme is a little more fruitful than the assignations of Chia-Chia and Ling-Ling.

He's Australian ­ don't argue

George Bernard Shaw famously described Britain and America as countries separated by a common language. But what of Britain and Australia?

Though physically further away, and with a time difference that makes doing business prohibitive, there is a feeling that our common cultures, heritage, and even history make the Antipodes more akin to the mother country than the Americas.

But in business the umbilical cord is being stretched to breaking point. First there were the troubles at Brambles (or, as older readers would know it, GKN), where the board came under pressure after the industrial conglomerate "lost" 14 million wooden pallets (many of which seem to be on some wasteland near our office). Now there is the intrigue at BHP Billiton, where chief executive Brian Gilbertson was ousted after a fallout allegedly related to a major international transaction codenamed "Project Six".

Rumours abound about what Project Six involved, varying from a merger with rival miners Rio Tinto or Anglo American, to a move into oil exploration or a deal to buy an aluminium smelter. Whatever it was, it involved a "transformation" and the possible departure of veteran BHP Billiton chairman Don Argus.

This is where the UK's lack of understanding of Australia comes in. Don Argus is a legend in Sydney, where he is nicknamed "Don't Argue". A tough, uncompromising operator, he is not only the chairman of Brambles but the former boss of National Australia Bank, where he masterminded a US acquisition that lost the bank A$3bn (£1.1bn).

From this distance it is hard to understand why Mr Argus is able to cling on to such power when he has such a chequered record. But that is perhaps why Britain and Australia are so different.

j.nisse@independent.co.uk