Equality body Sporting Equals will host its third Leaderboard conference next week, where it will unveil a resource to help national governing bodies (NGB) diversify their boards.

Increasing ethnic representation on boards forms one of the recommendations in the recently-published UK Sports Governance Code.

While governing bodies will not be penalised for not adding ethnic minorities to their boards in the same way they would be with lack of female representation, there appears to be an effort to improve the current landscape.

Only 3 per cent of NGB board members come from black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds despite the proportion of the ethnic population in the UK hitting the 14 per cent mark.

As well as the new resource, Sporting Equals has announced that an “innovative partnership” will be revealed on the day.

The event will be hosted by Ernst & Young, and will be attended by Sport England, UK Sport, Youth Sports Trust, as well as special guests Christine Ohuruogu MBE and Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson.

Arun Kang, chief executive of Sporting Equals, said: “The Leaderboard event is an important date in the diary for the sport sector as it assesses the number of BAME people that are represented in decision-making roles such as board positions and senior management teams.

“BAME communities make up 14 per cent of the UK population, however, only a few are in these key roles that will help sport engage and empathise with the challenges facing underrepresented ‘untapped’ communities in sport."