Archive 2005

The Commissioner met with the Secretary of State today, to discuss public appointments issues in Northern Ireland.

At Parliament Buildings today, the Commissioner attended an event held by Women into Politics, where she presented certificates to participants who had successfully completed courses with the organisation.

The Commissioner attended a meeting of the Executive Committee of the Northern Ireland Chairs Forum and gave a short presentation on the role in her office.

Felicity Huston made her first public speech as Commissioner today, at the Review of Public Administration's "Pathways to Access and Participation" conference at the Stormont Hotel.

The Commissioner has updated her Code of Practice, to amend the guidance on balancing boards. These changes appear on Pages 9 and 34 of the Code. If you have a hard copy of the Code and would like to print out these pages to update it, they can be accessed below.

Mrs Felicity Huston has taken up her appointment as Commissioner for Public Appointments for Northern Ireland, succeeding Baroness Fritchie, who continues in her role as Commissioner for England and Wales.

Mrs Huston is a partner in Huston & Co Tax Consultants. She is currently a member of the House of Lords Appointment Commission and the General Commissioners of Income Tax. Mrs Huston is also involved, in a voluntary capacity, with the Belfast Charitable Society. She has not carried out any political activity in the last five years.

The Commissioner has published the report of her Short Term Working Group on Diversity. The Group's terms of reference were:

·To review the current procedures for making public appointments in Northern Ireland, with a view to identifying the obstacles which prevent people from putting themselves forward for appointment, or being successful in gaining an appointment; and

·To recommend ways by which government departments could increase the diversity of applications for, and appointments to, public bodies, whilst upholding the merit principle.

The Commissioner has published her 10th Annual Report.

Baroness Fritchie comments: "This year has been one of continuous development, with many of the projects which began last year coming to fruition. I am particularly pleased to report the successful transfer of responsibility for the recruitment and administration of Independent Assessors to my Office. The new system has been in place for 6 months and, I believe, provides greater assurance to the public that appointments processes are conducted fairly and in an open and transparent manner."

The Report also contains a range of statistics and other information about public appointments, including the result of this year’s audit of departmental appointments processes.

The Commissioner concludes: "As I come to the end of my term of Office as Commissioner, I would like to commend government Departments for the progress they have made to put in place appointment processes which generally comply with my Code of Practice and in many cases, are in line with best practice. Of course, there are still improvements which could be made, for example, to make appointments more attractive and therefore widen the pool of candidates. I am confident that, under the guidance of my successor as Commissioner, appointments processes will continue to improve and public confidence in them will be maintained.

The Commissioner has been given a life peerage and is now styled "the Baroness Fritchie DBE". Lady Fritchie's term of office as Commissioner for Northern Ireland comes to an end on 31 July 2005 and a competition is currently underway to appoint a new Commissioner.

Last year, Dame Rennie commissioned MORI to carry out a research study on Perceptions of the Ministerial Public Appointments Process. The results of this research were released yesterday, with a press release.

The Commissioner has published her 9th Annual Report along with a press release which announced its publication. Both can be accessed by the links above.