Commissioning change in public appointments
Commissioner for Public Appointments John Keanie wants to see changes in how Departments handle recruitment to boards.
John Keanie was appointed Commissioner for Public Appointments for Northern Ireland (CPA NI) in August 2011, for a five-year non-renewable term. He is independent of government and likes the ‘non-renewable’ stipulation which will enable him to retain his independence to the end.
John’s role, set out in the Commissioner for Public Appointments [Northern Ireland] Order focuses on ensuring that public appointments are made on merit and that the process is efficient and effective. Responsibility for making public appointments rests with the Assembly’s ministers. The Commissioner prescribes and publishes a Code of Practice, governing the way in which Ministers and their Departments make appointments.
He and his small team then carry out compliance checks and audits of recruitment competitions and investigate complaints from candidates. They identify breaches of the Code and require Departments to take corrective action. Results are made public on the CPA NI website (www.publicappointmentsni.org) which contains a wealth of other information about the public appointments process.
Vision
John’s vision is to ensure that all public appointments are made on merit, in a fair and open manner and that opportunities to serve on the boards of public bodies are open to the widest possible field of candidates.
He says: “There are around 1,400 public appointment positions, with 300 to 400 up for appointment each year. It is disappointing that women, people under 30, people with a disability, people from ethnic minority communities and young people from the private sector with modern ideas and techniques, are under-represented on public boards. After some years of progress, women are stuck at around 30 per cent of board membership and the other categories barely feature, most averaging around 2 per cent.”
‘It is important to make appointments that are fair and merit-based. It is also important to make boards that are reflective of the community they serve, that are in touch with people and command their confidence, and that recognise and benefit from the wide and exciting range of backgrounds, skills and perspectives found right across our community.”
Need for change
John insists that the appointments process must change if the public is to have confidence in the boards that run public services and spend billions of pounds of tax-payers’ money.
“There are many able and committed individuals serving on boards but we need to widen the net. Previous attempts to do this concentrated on persuading people to apply for positions, but when they applied, they said they were met with jargon-filled application forms and a recruitment process that gave them less than a fighting chance.”
Hope for the future
John is hopeful that Departments see the need for change. Recent events, including a tribunal ruling of discrimination against a candidate, inadequate press releases announcing public appointments but leaving out important information, and a particularly poor audit report on a recruitment competition, have left a stain on the process but have also, usefully, highlighted the need for change.
John and his team are determined that they will continue to highlight inadequacies by Departments but, importantly, they will also assist Departments to get it right. Departments have responded to the Commissioner and his team on this offer of help and there is a new focus on making the public appointments process better.
Commissioner for Public Appointments for Northern Ireland
Dundonald House
Annexe B, Stormont Estate
Upper Newtownards Road
Belfast, BT4 3SB
Tel: 028 9052 4820
Email: info@publicappointmentsni.org
Web: www.publicappointmentsni.org
