With less than three months to go until the EU referendum, under half of UK companies have considered what effect the result will have on their organisation, according to a poll by ICSA, the Governance Institute and the Core Partnership, reflecting the findings of a recent Grant Thornton survey
The latest survey found that only 41% of UK boards have evaluated the potential impact, while 47% have not considered it at all.
In addition, over half of the respondents confirmed that their organisation has no planned contingencies or strategy to deal with an exit.
Simon Osborne, chief executive of ICSA, said: ‘While not all organisations operate within Europe, it is surprising that boards are not at least considering the knock-on effect that an exit could have on the underlying economy.
‘If sterling goes into freefall this will have an impact regardless of whether or not they have import or export agreements with Europe.
‘Boards really need to be thinking about some of the potential implications like staff supply, grants, access to markets and regulatory arbitrage now, whatever the sector.’
The EU referendum on EU membership will be held on 23 June.
