What more can we do to encourage people to make a difference to public life? 

Public appointees guide some of the most important institutions in the country – from the Bank of England and NHS England, through to the Ministry of Justice and Homes England. What is a public appointee, how are these roles advertised, what does the application process entail and, crucially, what do these appointments mean for rural communities? Jessica Sellick investigates. 

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According to the National Audit Office (NAO) there are approximately 4,476 public appointees. These are people in board level roles on public bodies – from the NHS and National Parks through to museums, galleries and national regulators. The public bodies which these appointees steer collectively spend more than £200 billion a year across the UK. With Government encouraging applications from people from all backgrounds, what is a public appointment and what do these roles mean for rural communities?

What are public appointments? According to the Government there is no exact definition of a public appointment –  typically it could cover a chair or a non-executive director, for a board of a public body, or a member of an advisory committee or an office holder. Similarly, the Institute for Government (IfG) describes how the term is commonly applied to a whole range of appointments to public bodies – from chairs of high profile public bodies through to board members of small, technical advisory groups. The term can also be applied to include appointments to publicly funded bodies like museums or NHS boards, however, it does not cover civil service appointments.   

Who can apply for a public appointment, and who makes appointments? The Government describes how most people can apply for a public appointment and how applicants who can ‘bring new talent and fresh perspectives to the services we all care about’ are actively encouraged to apply. You need the right to work in the UK to be eligible to apply. You cannot be considered if you are disqualified from acting as a company director, have an unspent conviction on your criminal record and/or your estate has been sequestrated in Scotland or you have entered into a debt arrangement programme under Part 1 of the Debt Arrangement and Attachment (Scotland) Act 2002. 

While the responsibilities of a public appointee can vary, they provide leadership and guidance to the body they sit on, with the role typically involving:  

• Setting the organisation’s strategy. 
• Agreeing business plans. 
• Recruiting key staff. 
• Holding senior staff to account on how the body is managed.
• Scrutinising the delivery of business plans. 
• Monitoring how budgets are spent. 
• Representing the work and views of the body to Ministers, parliamentarians, stakeholders and the public.  

The Governance Code on Public Appointments sets out the process and principles that should underpin all public appointments made to bodies listed in the Public Appointments Order in Council. The Governance Code was first published on 16 December 2016, with an amended version released on 8 February 2024. The following eight principles apply to all those involved with public appointments processes: 

A. Ministerial responsibility – the ultimate responsibility for appointments and thus the selection of those appointed rests with Ministers who are accountable to Parliament for their decisions and actions. 

B. Selflessness – Ministers, when making appointments, should act solely in terms of the public interest.

C. Integrity – Ministers, when making appointments, must avoid placing themselves under any obligation to people or organisations that might try inappropriately to influence them in their work. They should not act or take decisions in order to gain financial or other material benefits for themselves, their family, or their friends. They must declare and resolve any interests and relationships.

D. Merit – all public appointments should be governed by the principle of appointment on merit. This means providing Ministers with a choice of high-quality candidates, drawn from a strong, diverse field, whose skills, experiences and qualities have been judged to meet the needs of the public body or statutory office in question.

E. Openness – processes for making public appointments should be open and transparent.

F. Diversity – public appointments should reflect the diversity of the society in which we live and appointments should be made taking account of the need to appoint boards which include a balance of skills and backgrounds.

G. Assurance – there should be established assurance processes with appropriate checks and balances. The Commissioner for Public Appointments has an important role in providing independent assurance that public appointments are made in accordance with the eight principles and the Governance Code.

H. Fairness – selection processes should be fair, impartial and each candidate must be assessed against the same criteria for the role in question.

The Governance Code recommends that Ministers should be assisted in their decision making by Advisory Assessment Panels. The Panel should include a departmental official and an independent member. For competitions recruiting non-executive, non-chair members of a board, the panel should also include a representative from the public body concerned. It is Ministers who must agree the composition of the Panel and the Panel Chair. On undertaking their assessment of candidates, it is the role of the Panel to decide (objectively) who meets the published criteria for the role and is appointable to the role. The names of all appointable candidates are then submitted to Ministers and it is for them to determine merit and make the final appointment.  

It is also up to Ministers to decide on the length of tenure subject to any statutory provisions relating to the body to which the appointment is being made. The Code references a strong presumption that no individual should serve more than two terms or serve in any one post for more than ten years. Reappointments and extensions require the agreement of Ministers. There is no automatic presumption of reappointment and each case should be considered on its own merits – with any reappointment also taking account of the current board and its balance of skills and experience. In cases of exceptional reappointments or extensions the Commissioner for Public Appointments should be notified ahead of the announcement. It is the Commissioner for Public Appointments that provides overall independent assurance that public appointments are made in accordance with the principles set out in the Governance Code. 

What is the process for making public appointments? You can search for public appointments online. The process on how to apply is set out in the role advertisement and usually involves submitting your CV and a supporting statement explaining how you meet the requirements the role. The application process will also involve answering some diversity information questions. When you apply you also have the opportunities to select if you would like your application considered under the Disability Confident Scheme and/or to request reasonable adjustments to the application process. 

After you have submitted your application the following process is followed: 

• The application is sifted: an Advisory Assessment Panel reviews all of the applications and decides who will go through to the next stage. Details of the Panel members will be set out in the role advert. Feedback is not usually available to those who do not progress to interview.
• Attend an interview: this will be with the Panel and will usually last between 30 and 60 minutes. Here you will be asked to provide evidence of how your experience, knowledge and skills demonstrate the essential criteria for the role that were set out in the advertisement. You may also be asked to do a presentation on a particular topic. After the interview, the Panel will submit their assessment of whether each candidate met the criteria (and is therefore “appointable” to  the role), or not, to the appointing Minister.
• A Minister makes the decision: the Minister may choose to meet all candidates before making a final decision on who to appoint. For a small number of roles, you may also need to attend a hearing with a Parliamentary Select Committee for pre-appointment scrutiny before your appointment is confirmed. 
• Announcement: if you are successful, the sponsor department will contact you to discuss next steps. Your appointment will usually be announced publicly on gov.uk. If you are unsuccessful, you can ask for feedback.

For key public appointments, House of Commons Select Committees may hold evidence sessions with the Minister’s preferred candidate before the appointment is made. This system was introduced back in 2008 and since then approximately 258 pre-appointment hearings have taken place to the end of the 2019-2024 Parliamentary session. This pre-appointment scrutiny enables the Committee to endorse or raise concerns about the appointment. Following the evidence session the Committee prepares a report containing its view on the suitability of the candidate for appointment. It is then for the Minister to decide whether or not to accept the Committee’s recommendation. There have been a small number of occasions between 2008 and 2024 when a Committee has made a negative assessment of the Government’s preferred candidate. In the majority of these cases the appointment went ahead and was approved by Ministers. These cases include the appointment of Maggie Atkinson as Children’s Commissioner for England (2009), Les Ebdon as Director of Office for Fair Access (2012), Amanda Spielman as Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Ofsted (2016), Tina Stowell as Chair of the Charity Commission for England and Wales (2018), David Neal as Independent Chief Inspector for Borders and Immigration (2020) and Orlando Fraser as Chair of the Charity Commission (2022). There have also been cases where a candidate has withdrawn their application (e.g. Dominic Dodd for the post of Chair of Monitor in 2013). While Liz Calerbank was not endorsed as HM Chief Inspector of Probation in June 2011, the Minister subsequently appointed her to the role on a temporary basis in September 2011.   

Is the appointments process in need of reform? In August 2022 the Institute for Government (IfG) published a paper on reforming public appointments which examined the appointments process and offered recommendations for how it could be improved. The report highlighted some of the problems that have beset the appointments system in recent years, including the length of time it takes for Government to choose and appoint candidates, and the process of reconciling merit-based assessment with political input and independent regulation. Fifty recommendations for reform were made, focused around regulating all appointments made by Ministers, appointing a chief talent officer to improve candidate care and outreach; and to collect and publish data on appointment timescales including the causes of appointment delays. 

In November 2023, the IfG reflected on several changes the Government had made to the public appointments system – including commitments to appoint departmental non-executive directors through the public appointments system; to publish a full list of direct appointments (e.g. temporary roles such as the head of the vaccine taskforce during the COVID-19 pandemic), as well as several changes made to the Governance Code. 

In February 2024 the National Audit Office (NAO) published a report on non-executive appointments. The NAO found, despite the Governance Code specifying a 90-day period between a campaign closing and an appointment being announced, the average number of days that elapsed in 2022-2023 was 203 days. While highlighting the role of NEDs in providing strategic leadership, scrutinising performance, promoting transparency and taking a long-term perspective; the process for appointing NEDs varies significantly depending on the body they are being appointed to. 

Until April 2023 the Cabinet Office collected data on non-executive appointments through a manual exercise carried out once-a-year. This has now been replaced with an applicant-tracking system so that data can be gathered in real-time – monitoring the quality and diversity of the candidates, and the length of time taken to appointment. Alongside this, data on existing NEDs serving on boards is being collated manually.    

In May 2024 the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) published a report highlighting how not all Departments and arms-length bodies are using the applicant tracking system. This means the Cabinet Office does not have all the data it needs. Data on unregulated appointments is not currently required. The PAC describes how “we still do not have confidence that the public appointments process is efficient, transparent and fair. The Cabinet Office does not publish clear information about NEDs or the panels which select them. It launched a diversity action plan in 2019, with the ambition for 50% of all public appointees to be female and 14% of yearly appointments to be from ethnic minority backgrounds by 2022. It did not meet these targets by 2022 and has no plans to put in place a new diversity action plan or updated targets. While government has sought to strengthen its outreach activities, it cannot yet demonstrate how effective these have been in recruiting the best candidates for NED roles” (page 3). 

What does this all mean for rural communities? Appointments include senior roles across a wide range of bodies – including delivery or policy advisory bodies, regulators, funders and departmental NEDS. These range from NED positions at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and some of the 34 agencies and public bodies it works with (e.g. Rural Payments Agency, the Office for Environmental Protection and ofwat) through to positions in national bodies (e.g. National Highways, Money & Pensions Service, Crown Commercial Estate, Homes England). Public appointees sit on boards whose policies, interventions and funding affect rural communities, businesses and places. 

Rural proofing is a systematic process designed to ensure that policies, programmes and initiatives are suitable for rural areas. It requires policy and decision makers to consider rurality in the design, implementation and evaluation of initiatives. If appointees are stewards of taxpayer resources, how are we ‘thinking rural’ in the public appointments process? For example, are there some boards where some public appointees should have knowledge or experience of living and working in the countryside? In recognising how rural factors such as sparsity, distance and connectivity need to be acknowledged in funding formulae, strategies, policies and delivery; how do we ensure that these specific challenges as well as the potential of rurality are considered at a board – governance level – as well as at operational and senior management and leadership levels? 

The PAC emphasises how public appointments should be made on the basis of merit rather than patronage, given the scale and importance of the roles of many of those appointed. Do we need to review which public appointments have a rural context? What more can we do to improve the support given to applicants, Advisory Assessment Panels, Select Committees and Ministers to ensure the process is thorough, fair and results in the selection of the best candidate(s) for the role? And what further monitoring, evaluation and oversight needs to be put in place to better understand the (rural) outcomes of the appointments process for the appointee, public body and taxpayers? 

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Jessica is a project manager at Rose Regeneration and a senior research fellow at The National Centre for Rural Health and Care (NCRHC). She is currently measuring the impact of a service that supports patients living with and beyond cancer; and reviewing neighbourhood-based initiatives (NBI). Jessica also sits on the board of a charity supporting rural communities across Cambridgeshire and is a member of her local Patient Participation Group. 

She can be contacted by email jessica.sellick@roseregeneration.co.uk. 

Website: http://roseregeneration.co.uk/https://www.ncrhc.org/ 

Blog: http://ruralwords.co.uk/ 

Twitter: @RoseRegen 

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