The process
12. The Government also stated that they expected committee hearings
"to focus on issues of professional competence",[19]
and that "it is essential that it is conducted in such a
way that we both enhance the role of Parliament in scrutinising
public appointments and maintain an appointments process which
is proportionate and continues to attract high quality candidates".[20]
The Minister's letter stated that "the format of pre-appointment
hearings will broadly follow the process set out in the Green
Paper … We expect committee hearings to focus on issues of
professional competence."[21]
In our view, this is too restrictive. Personal independence
is a key requirement in all public posts and most obviously in
those such as a regulator, or the Chairman of the BBC Trust. It
should be included explicitly as a focus of any hearings, as recommended
by the Public Administration Select Committee and endorsed in
a number of letters from Chairmen.
13. We share the Government's aim to create a process
that can "both enhance the role of Parliament in scrutinising
public appointments and maintain an appointments process which
is proportionate and continues to attract high quality candidates."
To this end, we have prepared a set of guidelines which we
believe should ensure that any hearing is conducted appropriately.
These are printed in the box below and our intention is that they
would be followed by individual committees.
Pre-appointment hearings: draft guidelines
Preparing for the session
The Committee should aim to give the witness at least
a week's notice of the session. Standard briefing should be available
to the candidate on what to expect from the session. The candidate
should also be informed how long the session is likely to last.
During the session
The Chairman should ensure that Members are aware
that their questions must remain relevant to the professional
competence and personal independence of the candidate. Questions
eliciting background information about the candidate's past career
and about the selection process for the post are also normally
acceptable.
The candidate will need to be able to withstand parliamentary
and public scrutiny should they take up the post, and the purpose
of the session is to test this. Questioning may therefore be robust,
and it may cover some areas that might not be appropriate at interview,
such as party political allegiance. The Chairman should intervene,
however, if questions are irrelevant, unduly personal, or discriminatory.
After the session
Immediately after the evidence session, the Committee
should meet in private to agree a report to the House containing
its views on the suitability of the candidate. This will ensure
both that the evidence is fresh in Members' minds and that Members
who were not present at the evidence do not influence the content
of the report. It will also avoid unnecessarily prolonged speculation
about a candidate's fate. The Committee may also wish to instruct
the Chairman to write to the relevant Minister with any opinions
that it prefers to express privately, to supplement the published
report.
The Committee's report should be published as soon
as possible after the evidence session. Reports should be subject
to a 24 hour embargo to allow the candidate and the Minister to
prepare a response to any negative comments. They should be provided
under embargo only to the candidate and the Minister.
14. We see it as our role, as the Liaison Committee,
to work with Ministers to ensure that their welcome initiative
is beneficial. It is for us and individual committees to monitor
how the evidence sessions have gone as the process of pre-appointment
hearings develops, and discuss this with Ministers and their departments,
and not the other way round. This should be a joint process, if
the Government means what it says. For this reason, a Government-planned
"pilot" does not seem to us appropriate. It is not a
process to be "supervised by the Government or which can
only proceed if Ministers give their approval".[22]
Indeed, as the Chairman of the Joint Committee on Human Rights
writes in his letter to our Chairman:
Committees are entitled to call any newly-appointed
public official to discuss any issues in relation to their qualifications
for the post and future plans, regardless of whether the Government
considers this appropriate. We welcome the Government's willingness
to engage in pre-appointment hearings but we would not wish the
work of Committees to be constrained, or appear to be constrained,
in any way. It will also be important to make clear that the Government
remains solely responsible for appointments to posts where pre-appointment
hearings have taken place. Endorsement of the Government's nominee
at a pre-appointment hearing must not preclude robust scrutiny
of performance in the job.
15. We are confident that committees will want to
make a success of the process. They have the necessary expertise
and sensitivity, although there are many calls on their limited
time. It will be for them to take the initiative to hold an evidence
session, once they are notified. The Chairman of the Environment,
Food and Rural Affairs Committee suggests that, from the list
of posts identified,
… departmental select committees should be notified
of major appointments and that committees should then be able
to decide—perhaps within an agreed period of time—whom
they see.
The discretion should remain with them. Committees,
and through them, the public, are being encouraged to engage with
appointees to public office. This important task needs to be carried
out, but it should not crowd out the wider scrutiny of Ministers
and their departments in evidence and reports by which committees
can ensure that they are accountable.
16. The Government's proposals are a welcome response
to our belief that select committees can add value to an appointments
process. The relationship between Parliament and these public
bodies, of communication, scrutiny and, when needed, of support,
can only be strengthened as a consequence. Subject to the additions
proposed by Chairmen, and the reservations of the Chairman of
the Committee of Public Accounts about pre-appointment hearings
for the Comptroller and Auditor General, given the unique method
of appointing to that post, which we share, we would endorse the
Minister's list of appointments on which committees should have
the opportunity to take evidence. As we have made clear earlier,
this list, which can be kept under review, should be neither exclusive,
nor mandatory where a committee does not wish to add such a session
to its current programme of work. Nonetheless, it is our firm
view that committees will now wish to work together with Ministers
and their departments to carry forward a developing series of
evidence sessions that can be helpful to the postholder and the
department while providing enhanced accountability to Parliament.
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