Appointment of the Chair of the Social Security Advisory Committee

The Cabinet Office’s guidance clearly says that departments should engage early and openly with select committees to enable effective scrutiny of the Government’s choices for key senior public roles. This should include consulting on job descriptions, timetabling and advertising. The first we heard of the recruitment campaign for a new SSAC Chair, however, was when the campaign was launched in May 2020. Even then, we only received formal communication from the Department after Committee staff raised the issue with DWP officials. Given that the vacancy had arisen some nine months previously, it is not clear why no attempt was made to engage with us or with our predecessor Committee earlier. The Secretary of State of state is “embarrassed” by this failing. We understand that she has asked officials to look into what caused it, and we are grateful for her efforts to address this.

We recognise that the Secretary of State did not want to restart the recruitment process for this role, given how far advanced it was at the point we were notified. If this mistake happens again, we would expect the Department to start over. We note that there are two further DWP posts subject to pre-appointment scrutiny due to become vacant in the near future. We expect the Department to offer a model of best practice in these, and future, recruitments.

We are satisfied that Dr Stephen Brien has the personal independence and professional competence to be Chair of the Social Security Advisory Committee. We wish him every success in his new role, and we look forward to working with him. Dr Brien identified in evidence to us some areas where his knowledge and understanding of the Committee’s work could be improved. They include: • Housing; • Disability; and • Issues relating to the devolved administrations. We welcome his commitment to build his expertise in those areas, and look forward to hearing from him in the future about the progress he has made.