Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80-99)
BARONESS PRASHAR,
CLARE PELHAM
AND HON
MR JUSTICE
GOLDRING
20 MARCH 2007
Q80 Mr Tyrie: I am referring to these
people who sift just above the line but would have done very well
and would already have been seen as outstanding potential candidates
at the time they came to interview on the basis of the points
score.
Mr Justice Goldring: The points
score at the sift does not dominate the interview. Once you start
an interview that is what counts, not what happened at the sift.
Q81 Mr Tyrie: So you go back to square
one?
Mr Justice Goldring: Essentially
you do.
Q82 Mr Tyrie: That seems to be a
different answer from the answer I got a moment ago. I am just
trying to clarify, when you have collected your score from the
sift and you go forward to interview, is the interviewer ignoring
wholly your points score? That is set aside as irrelevant to him?
All he knows is that you were good enough to get through the sift?
Baroness Prashar: People are not
scored at the sift stage. In this competition it did not matter
by which route you got sifted. Once you were sifted you were interviewed
on an equal footing.
Q83 Mr Tyrie: And therefore your
sift score was ignored for the purposes of the interview, not
available to the interviewer?
Mr Justice Goldring: It was available
but it was not the basis of the interview, so the final interview
does not depend in any way upon what happened at sift.
Mr Tyrie: I am somewhat reassured. I
cannot say I am wholly reassured.
Q84 Keith Vaz: I wish I shared your
reassurance. I think what would be helpful would be a simple grid
table with on the left-hand side how you select these candidates,
how you did it prior to this appointments system, and on the right-hand
side how you changed it to improve it so that we can understand
how it works. That would be very helpful to us and also for applicants
maybe you should have a grid system when they apply[4].
I do sympathise, Baroness Prashar. You have got a new organisation,
you have been there for 11 months, you are relying almost completely
on DCA staff, though you have got some agency staff, and quite
literally you did not know whether you were coming or going, whether
you were staying in London or going to Manchester, so it is amazing
that you have actually started any sift process of any kind, but
what would be very helpful, I think, would be if we could have
a copy of the letter that you sent to the unsuccessful people
who were involved in the sift explaining what went wrong.[5]
We do not have to have their names, just the template, because
you obviously used a standard template telling everyone what you
thought went wrong. I just have one final question concerning
the appointments to the High Court Bench. The deadline passed,
as you know, on 20 November 2006. Would you be able to tell us
how many women or ethnic minorities applied, not who has been
appointed, obviously, because I am not sure we know that yet,
but how many applied?
Baroness Prashar: We will be able
to tell you that once the competition is completed because we
have just finished interviewing and we are in the process of thinking
about making recommendations. Once the competition is completed—
Q85 Keith Vaz: Do you know roughly
when that will be?
Baroness Prashar: The difficulty
is this, that we are required to make recommendations some time
in April and the vacancy notice said that we had to create a list
of 25 people in different categories—for Chancery, for Queen's
Bench and so on, but the appointments on that list will be made
as and when vacancies arise. The question we have to determine
is when we think the competition is closed. This is what happens
when you have competitions, and we are still considering when
best to publish the analysis but we have every intention of making
that available.
Q86 Keith Vaz: But you will appoint
for the vacancy when? In April?
Baroness Prashar: We will make
recommendations.
Q87 Keith Vaz: To the Lord Chancellor?
Baroness Prashar: Yes.
Q88 Keith Vaz: In April?
Baroness Prashar: That is right,
and then it depends when the vacancies come out.
Q89 Chairman: Just remind us: he
then has a panel of names?
Baroness Prashar: Yes. We have
been asked to create a list of 25, so that is what the list is.
Then, when the vacancies arise, specifically, let us say, for
the Queen's Bench or Chancery, there will be another vacancy notice
and we will then match that vacancy notice to a person on the
list, and we can only make one recommendation to the Lord Chancellor,
as in the statute.
Q90 Keith Vaz: So it is a pool of
25?
Baroness Prashar: That is right.
Q91 Keith Vaz: When somebody pops
off or retires or whatever?
Baroness Prashar: That is right.
Q92 Chairman: So are you saying there
are difficulties in publicising the pool because these are people
who are waiting in the wings?
Baroness Prashar: That is right.
Q93 Chairman: And a vacancy may arise?
Baroness Prashar: Yes.
Q94 Chairman: So you can give us
aggregation but you cannot tell us—
Baroness Prashar: Yes.
Chairman: I fully understand that.
Q95 Keith Vaz: You would be able
to tell us the number of women and ethnic minorities who both
applied and who have become one of the 25?
Baroness Prashar: Yes, that is
exactly it.
Q96 Chairman: And will they know
they are one of the 25?
Baroness Prashar: Yes. This information
was available in the information pack, because when people applied
they were given an information pack. They were told 25, out of
which there were some for Chancery, some for Queen's Bench, some
for Family and so on, so this information was with the candidates
and, of course, when they applied they indicated their preference.
Q97 Chairman: But they will know
at the end of your part of the process that they are one of the
25?
Baroness Prashar: Yes.
Q98 Keith Vaz: From my point of view,
as it is for you and for this Committee, this is a very serious
situation and we will be revisiting it, I hope, in the future
and on a regular basis.
Baroness Prashar: From my point
of view, if I may say this to you, I would be happy to send you
more information because I think it is very important that as
a committee we share with you the information and you understand
what our processes are. The complication this year was we had
old processes. We have introduced new processes which in my view
are going to be better but will be kept under review, so it will
be helpful, I think, if we can observe and work with you on the
new processes and how they are operating. As I said earlier, we
regret that the Circuit Bench went wrong but that was under the
old processes and we have done our best to make sure that nobody
was disadvantaged.
Q99 Mr Tyrie: I just want to echo
what Keith had to say. We understand the difficulties that you
are working under. It does sound to me as if you have quite a
management problem in the Department to sort out and we will be
watching closely to see how that is resolved. Clearly things are
not running smoothly at the moment.
Baroness Prashar: Absolutely.
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Ev 25-27 Back
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