HBOS, Centrica, Co-operative Group, PepsiCo, BskyB, Deloitte, KPMG and Ford Europe are amongst the first companies to sign up to a new organisational diversity mentoring scheme.

Due to be launched by diversity consultancy, Performance Through Inclusion (PTI) on 8 March, the scheme will enable companies to share best practice on diversity issues.

Kate Headley, director and head of PTI's recruitment division, said: "Networking and sharing ideas with fellow practitioners is of unquestionable value and is something the network does already. What it will do now is enable one company that has developed a successful formula in one particular area of diversity to help a company that has historically struggled.

"A company that has struggled in one particular area of diversity may have an awful lot to add somewhere else. This is how we envisage the mentoring to work and we're confident that it will spread far more quickly."