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Select Committee · Public Accounts Committee

Non-executive director appointments

Status: Closed Opened: 10 Jan 2024 Closed: 28 May 2024 11 recommendations 12 conclusions 1 report

Non-executive directors (NEDs) serve on the boards of Government departments and arm’s-length bodies (ALBs). Their role is to provide challenge and expert advice grounded in experience to management boards and Government ministers. The Committee’s 2021 report on Government’s delivery through arm’s-length bodies noted controversy around the appointment of NEDs to departmental boards as raising questions …

Clear

Reports

1 report
Title HC No. Published Items Response
Thirtieth Report - Non-executive appointments HC 460 8 May 2024 23 Responded

Recommendations & Conclusions

3 items
8 Conclusion Thirtieth Report - Non-executive appoin… Acknowledged

Public appointments data collection prior to April 2023 was manual, infrequent, and error-prone.

Until April 2023, the Cabinet Office’s only method of collecting data about public appointments was a manual exercise once a year, so it did not hold real-time data on delays. Departments were required to provide information about all those serving in post as regulated public appointments on March 31 of …

Government response. The government agrees with the recommendation and states that NED recruitment became regulated in June 2023. It commits to strongly encouraging attendance at board meetings and reflecting this in the next update of the existing Corporate Governance Code, rather than …
HM Treasury
9 Conclusion Thirtieth Report - Non-executive appoin… Acknowledged

New centralised applicant-tracking system launched to improve public appointments data collection.

In April 2023, the Cabinet Office launched a new, centralised applicant-tracking system that consolidates the selection process for all regulated public appointments and some unregulated appointments. The centralised system makes it possible for the Cabinet Office to collect richer, real-time data on the appointments. The recruiting department is expected to …

Government response. The government aims to have all regulated appointments being run through the new applicant tracking system by Summer 2025, with technical changes to the digital platform to allow further integration of data.
HM Treasury
10 Conclusion Thirtieth Report - Non-executive appoin… Acknowledged

Departments fail to consistently use new system, resulting in inaccurate and delayed data.

The NAO reported that some departments were still running the process outside of the new system and entering data into the system after the fact, instead of in real time. The NAO also noted that basic errors in data entry, such as inverting dates, meant that the data generated by …

Government response. The government aims to have all regulated appointments being run through the new applicant tracking system by Summer 2025, with technical changes to the digital platform to allow further integration of data.
HM Treasury

Oral evidence sessions

1 session
Date Witnesses
18 Mar 2024 Elizabeth Passey · Rural Payments Agency, Michael Jary · Cabinet Office, Simon Madden · NHSX, Sir Alex Chisholm · Cabinet Office View ↗

Correspondence

3 letters
DateDirectionTitle
16 Apr 2024 — Correspondence from Simon Madden, Director of Propriety & Ethics, Cabinet Offic…
15 Apr 2024 — Correspondence from Simon Madden, Director of Propriety & Ethics, Cabinet Offic…
15 Apr 2024 — Joint correspondence from Sir Alex Chisholm, Civil Service Chief Operating Offi…