2007 Public appointments plan for HM Treasury
Introduction
1. The Treasury is committed to achieving the highest standards in public appointments. Our processes are fair and transparent, and diversity is taken into account, and acted upon, both during recruitment campaigns and generally.
2. Given the relatively few public appointments made by the Treasury, responsibility for individual campaigns is delegated to sponsor teams. However, the Permanent Secretary's office has overall responsibility for appointment and for all areas of propriety, and as a result public appointments are an integral part of the Treasury's departmental management and strategy.
3. This annual plan is separated into three sections as follows:
- An overview of the appointments made by the Treasury;
- Some details on the appointments the Treasury made in 2006-07; and
- The Treasury's future priorities for the coming three years.
Overview of Treasury appointments
4. The Treasury is responsible for 8 appointments to one Non Departmental Public Body (NDPB), the Statistics Commission, and for 19 appointments, including the Governor and two Deputy Governors, to the Court of the Bank of England, which is classified as a Central Bank.*
5. Apart from the Governor and Deputy Governors to the Bank, each of the remaining 24 appointments is OCPA-regulated. Diversity targets for these bodies have been adopted and we continue to ensure that the appointment process for all our bodies follows best practice as set out in the Commissioner for Public Appointment's Code of Practice. Full details on the Treasury's public bodies can be accessed via the Cabinet Office's Public Bodies database.
6. In addition, Treasury Ministers also make appointments to bodies that are outside the scope of the Cabinet Office's annual Public Bodies publication. These are: the Chair and Non Executive Directors to Board of the Financial Services Authority; the Non Executive Directors to the National Savings and Investments Board; members of the Public Works Loan Board; and the Crown Estate Commissioners.
Appointments in 2005-06
7. During 2006-2007 the Treasury recruited for three positions at the Court of the Bank of England. For these high profile campaigns, applications were encouraged from across the community. We have widened our advertising by using the Cabinet Office Public Appointments Vacancies Website, alongside HM Treasury's and the bodies' websites.
8. We ensure that all advertising welcomes applications from suitably qualified under represented groups. For example, the advertisements for appointments to the Court of the Bank of England emphasised the importance of broad regional, national and sectoral balance, so that these interests were represented in decision making.
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Future priorities
9. The Treasury will continue to work with sponsor bodies to explore ways in which its approach to diversity, indeed to appointments generally, can be improved. Our approach will take account of the fact that opportunities for increasing appointments from under represented groups are restricted by the forward programme of vacancies in the next three years, in particular the possibility of current incumbents being reappointed.
10. The Treasury's targets take account of the opportunities available against the Government's overall commitment to equal representation of women and men, pro-rata representation of ethnic minorities and the increased participation of disabled people.
11. If you have any questions about this plan, or Treasury public appointments generally, please contact:
Simon Hodges
Assistant Private Secretary to Nicholas Macpherson
Permanent Secretary
HM Treasury
1 Horse Guards Road
London SW1A 2HQ
simon.hodges@hm-treasury.gov.uk
* The Public Services Productivity Panel was wound up at the time of the Pre Budget Report in October 2006. The Treasury is therefore no longer responsible for the 13 appointments to the PSPP.