Recommendation 6

The current public appointments process does not give confidence that it is efficient, transparent and fair. Following the Grimstone Review and the Committee’s 2016 recommendations, the Cabinet Office developed a Governance Code on public appointments which established the process that departments should follow. However, it currently does not check whether its Code is being followed across government. It does not collect data on whether ministers have overridden advice on public appointments, nor does it have a plan in place to improve diversity across the appointments process. This gives rise to real risks around the transparency and accountability of the public appointments process. The Cabinet Office is currently developing a new application tracking system for public appointments and we would expect the collection of diversity data to be a key part of this. Recommendation: The Cabinet Office should confirm in the Treasury Minute: • what arrangements it will put in place to ensure the Code is adhered to; • when it expects its new public appointments recording system to be operational; • that data collected will include diversity statistics and data on the length of time appointments take; and • how it will assure itself that decisions on public appointments are transparent and made on merit. 8 Government’s delivery through arm’s-length bodies 1 Oversight and management of arm’s- length bodies (ALBs)