1.  SUMMARY

  1.1  This statement:

— outlines the role of the Commissioner for Public Appointments;

— gives details about diversity in public appointments within the Commissioner's remit and the Commissioner's Diversity and Talent Strategy;

— provides information on political activity in public appointments within the Commissioner's remit; and

— includes the Commissioner's comments on particular aspects of the Speaker's Conference Inquiry.

2.  THE ROLE OF THE COMMISSIONER FOR PUBLIC APPOINTMENTS

  2.1  The Commissioner for Public Appointments regulates and reports on Ministerial appointments to the boards of specific public bodies in England and Wales and particular non-devolved public bodies in Northern Ireland. The Commissioner's role and bodies within her remit are set out in the Public Appointments Order in Council 2002 and amending Orders (copies attached). The bodies fall into the following categories:

— Executive Non-Departmental Public Bodies (NDPBs);

— Advisory NDPBs;

— some Public Corporations;

— Public Broadcasting Authorities;

— specific NHS bodies;

— certain Utility Regulators;

— some Non-Ministerial Departments;

— Boards of National Parks; and

— Conservation Boards for Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

  The Commissioner does not, therefore, regulate all public appointments. For example, judicial appointments do not fall within her remit.

  2.2  The Commissioner also has a role to promote equality of opportunity and diversity in the procedures for making public appointments within her remit, with the object of maintaining selection on merit. The role to promote equality of opportunity was given to the Commissioner in the Public Appointments Order in Council 2002 and diversity was added to her remit by the Public Appointments (Amendment No 2) Order in Council 2008.

  2.3  The Commissioner's aim is to ensure that Ministerial appointments within her remit are made on merit after a fair, open and transparent process.

  2.4  The Commissioner is independent of Government and is appointed by The Queen by Order in Council. She is not a civil servant.

  2.5  The Commissioner is supported by the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments (OCPA), an independent office of the Cabinet Office, staffed by Civil Servants.

  2.6  The Commissioner does not make public appointments herself—this is for individual Ministers following processes run by their departments (Health Ministers have delegated this responsibility to the Appointments Commission). However, departments are required to follow the Commissioner's mandatory requirements set out in the Commissioner's Code of Practice for Ministerial Appointments to Public Bodies. (Public appointees are office holders rather than employees and public appointments do not therefore constitute employment.)

  2.7  The Commissioner publishes statistics in her Annual Report[228] on exemptions from her Code of Practice, political activity of new appointees, diversity of appointees and re-appointees and on complaints about the public appointments process. The diversity data differs from the statistics published by the Cabinet Office in their annual Public Bodies report in that the information contained in the Commissioner's Report relates to new appointees and re-appointees whereas the Cabinet Office figures relate to appointees in post. In addition, the Cabinet Office data include bodies not within the Commissioner's remit such as Tribunal NDPBs.

3.  DIVERSITY IN PUBLIC APPOINTMENTS

3.1  Gender statistics

  3.1.1  The following table shows the percentage of new women appointees and re-appointees to the bodies within the Commissioner's remit for the past three years.

  3.1.2  The Commissioner noted in her latest Annual Report that 2007-08 was the third successive year in which the percentage of female appointees and re-appointees had fallen. In addition, although more female chairs were appointed to executive and advisory NDPBs in 2007-08, significantly fewer women were appointed as chairs of health bodies compared with the previous year.

3.2  Ethnicity statistics

  3.2.1  Similarly, the Commissioner commented in her latest Annual Report that the percentage of ethnic minority candidates also fell from 9.2% in 2006-07 to 7.7% in 2007-08.

3.3  Disability statistics

  3.3.1  The percentage of appointees and re-appointees declaring a disability in the past three years was as follows:

  3.3.2  As illustrated by the above table, the overall number of appointees and re-appointees declaring a disability fell in 2007-08 compared with the previous year when the figures had reached a peak of 6.1%. It may be worthy of note that the peak percentage followed an OCPA Short-term Working Group on Disability initiative in 2004-05 and a subsequent disability mentoring pilot scheme led by the Cabinet Office. (In 2003-04 3.2% of appointees/re-appointees declared a disability, this increased to 4.1% in 2004-05 and again in 2006-07 to 6.1%).

  3.3.3  There is anecdotal evidence that candidates and appointees may be reluctant to declare a disability and/or that the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 definition used in the diversity monitoring forms does not encourage individuals to view themselves as having a disability.

3.4  Age statistics

  3.4.1  The following table gives an age breakdown by age for members and chair appointee and re-appointees combined.

  3.4.2  This shows that typically most appointees and re-appointees are aged between 56 and 65.

  3.4.3  The Commissioner established a working party to consider the issue of Age and Public Appointments in November 2006. A seminar on this subject was held in Autumn 2007 and a guidance document for use by departments was produced.

3.5  Diversity and Talent Strategy

  3.5.1  The Commissioner is keen to improve the participation of diverse groups in public bodies within her remit. With this in mind, she is working on a new two year Diversity and Talent Strategy. As part of her Strategy, the Commissioner will be examining (among other issues) the barriers to the participation in public appointments for people who fall within the following diversity strands:

— gender/transgender;

— race;

— disability;

— age;

— sexual orientation;

— religious belief and non-religious belief; and

— social exclusion (eg class, region etc).

  3.5.2  The Commissioner plans to develop practical tools and sustainable programmes for departments to help them attract more diverse candidates, together with improved communication links (such as electronic links on her website to diverse organisations and examples of departments' best practice initiatives).

4.  POLITICAL ACTIVITY AND PUBLIC APPOINTMENTS

  4.1  On the recommendation of the Committee on Standards in Public Life all applicants for public appointment are asked to complete a standard political activity monitoring form. The form (which is not made available to the selection panel) only requests information that is already in the public domain; it does not ask for personal or private information such as membership of political parties or voting preferences.

  4.2  The form asks candidates to declare any of the following political activities that they have undertaken in the past five years:

— obtained office as a Local Councillor, MP, MEP etc;

— stood as a candidate for Local Councillor, MP, MEP etc;

— spoken on behalf of a party or candidate;

— acted as a political agent;

— held office such as Chair, Treasurer or Secretary of a local branch of a party;

— canvassed on behalf of a party or helped at local elections;

— undertaken any other political activity the candidate considers relevant; or

— made a recordable donation to a political party.

  4.3  Neither activity nor affiliation is a criterion for appointment except, in rare instances, where statute dictates specific party political representation (eg for the Committee on Standards in Public Life).

  4.4  The table below gives information on the percentage of total appointees declaring political activity for the last seven years.

  4.5  As illustrated by the table above, the proportion of appointees declaring political activity in 2007-08 fell considerably to 10.4%—a big decrease compared with 2001-02 when it stood at 20.7%. Across the major parties, but particularly the Labour Party, declaration fell in 2007-08 compared with previous years.

  4.6  In 2007-08 of 2,621 appointees and re-appointees in total, 272 declared political activity. The table below gives a breakdown of these:

5.  SPECIFIC QUESTIONS RAISED BY THE SPEAKERS' CONFERENCE

  5.1  The Commissioner's non-political role and the current lack of available evidence means that the Commissioner is regrettably unable to comment on many of the specific areas of interest highlighted in the announcement of the Speaker's Conference inquiry. However, she offers the following comments:

— in her view, diverse public body boards lead to better decision making and improved customer service;

— there are many and varied reasons why diverse individuals may not apply for public appointments. These include insufficient role models, and the attractiveness of public appointments and lack of both the understanding of the opportunities for appointment available and the workings of public bodies; and

— there is some evidence that once women apply for public appointments, they are proportionally more successful than their male counterparts. Accordingly there is a need to do more to encourage suitable women to apply for public appointments.

Mrs Janet Gaymer CBE QC

Commissioner for Public Appointments