Fewer than one in eight public appointments recruitment campaigns was completed in line with a longstanding three-month target in 2023-24 – representing a new low, a report has shown.
Commissioner for public appointments Sir William Shawcross said the situation was "very damaging to the whole appointments process", which provides public bodies with non-executive directors, chairs and advisory board members.
In 2019, 50% of recruitment campaigns were completed within three months of applications closing but by 2021-22 the figure had dropped to one-quarter. In 2022-23 the proportion fell to 16% and last year it stood at just 13%, according to the latest annual report from the commissioner.
In 2023, Shawcross told members of parliament's Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee he believed delays in appointments processes were causing public bodies to lose "a lot of good people".
"People don’t want to wait six months to see if they’re going to get an appointment or not. They’d rather apply for something else," he warned.
In his latest report, which only covers appointments under the previous Conservative government up until April 2024, Shawcross warned the process of consulting with No.10 on public appointments appeared to have extended the time taken to finalise roles, and that more than half of the 319 appointments regulated by the commissioner had input from Downing Street in 2023-24.
He said one department had suggested that consultation with the Office of the Prime Minister could extend the appointment process by two weeks at each of five stages, potentially adding 10 weeks of delay.
Another – unnamed – department said the consultation process "hard-wired in failure to meet the three-month target".
Shawcross said No.10 had a legitimate interest in being involved with public appointments but insisted that should not be an excuse for delays.
"Where necessary, departments have a responsibility to engage the prime minister’s office as early as possible," he said. "For its part, the prime minister’s office must ensure that its involvement does not create a bottleneck in the appointments process."
The commissioner said he was keen to see the publication of a list of public appointments that are of interest to the prime minister and would "very much welcome" a decision on the part of government to publish such a list, alongside a description of the processes involved.
However he added that the government would have to consider whether publication of the list would have unintended consequences.
More "disappointing" SIPM errors
Elsewhere in his report, Shawcross noted that on three separate occasions in 2023-24 departmental officials had put forward Conservative Party peers as "senior independent panel members" for appointments processes – a move that is contrary to governance code rules.
While political activity is not a bar to being a member of an advisory assessment panel, so long as it is publicly disclosed, it is not permitted for SIPMs. Although the report covers a period when a Conservative administration was in charge, peers with other political affiliations would also not have been acceptable.
In 2022-23 there was a similar instance in relation to the appointment process for a new chair of the UK Statistics Authority. After the recruitment process had ended, it emerged that the SIPM – also a Conservative peer – had declared political activity that should have ruled them out of the role.
Shawcross said the latest examples – which involved the Cabinet Office, the Department for Education and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office – were "particularly disappointing".
The commissioner said that the breaches of the governance code appeared to be honest mistakes in relation to the disclosure of political activity by a panel member.
"It is imperative that officials feel able to tell ministers that suggested SIPMs are unsuitable without recourse to the commissioner," Shawcross said.
He added: "Vigilance is vital to maintain the integrity of the entire process – there must be no fear that independent panel members could have undisclosed political activity."