Recommendation 23

We questioned the witnesses about their outreach initiatives and how success will be measured. When we asked how they measured success of “roadshow” events, the Cabinet Office told us that it tracks whether people sign up on the website and noted that 84% of attendees to the outreach events it has held so far strongly agree that they would recommend interest or involvement in the public appointments process to friends or colleagues. It told us that it was continuing to measure data against gender and ethnicity, but that its measures are less good for social background and it has not analysed by professional background either. The Government’s Lead Non-Executive noted that hosting outreach 40 C&AG’s Report, para 3 41 Q 73 42 Q 81 43 Q 88 44 Correspondence from Cabinet Office to Public Accounts Committee, 26 March 2024 45 Q 75 46 Q 77; C&AG’s Report, paras 13, 3.12, 3.13 47 C&AG’s Report, para 3.12 48 Q 84; C&AG’s Report, Figure 12 Non-executive appointments 15 evens is a big cost to Government so it needs to be sure that what it is doing is working. He told us that it is important that Cabinet Office measures the impact and holds itself to account for whether these activities are successful.49 When we asked how the new website might help broaden outreach, the Cabinet Office told us that it was recycling candidates from past searches who were found appointable but were not appointed. When we asked what was being done to reach new talent, the Cabinet Office assured us it was seeing fresh talent coming through but also want to make use of ‘near misses’ from past campaigns. When we asked if it was advertising opportunities in places where they would be seen by diverse audiences, the Cabinet Office told us that it was primarily using the official government website. It told us that 12,000 people had registered for the government website and approximately 5,000 had uploaded their CVs.50 49 Q 80 50 Qq 77–79 16 Non-executive appointments