Adjournment Debate at the House of Commons
Seema Malhotra, Member of Parliament for Feltham and Heston, spoke at an adjournment debate about ‘Diversity in Public Appointments’ in the chamber at the House of Commons on Thursday 13th March 2014. Drawing upon the Cabinet Office Public Bodies 2013 report and the Diversity UK ‘Beyond the Glass Ceiling: Representation in Public Appointments’ survey results, Seema spoke about the need “for equality to ensure the best decision making possible for our public services”. The government was represented by The Minister for Civil Society, Mr Nick Hurd MP in the debate.
Seema Malhotra was supported on the Labour benches by Keith Vaz MP (Labour East) who asked about the devolution of responsibility to an independent body and what impact this has had on the monitoring of progress; Diane Abbot MP ((Hackney North and Stoke Newington) who highlighted the increasing levels of education and success of the growing ethnic minority population and contrasted that with the decline in their representation in the public sector and Julie Hilling MP (Bolton West) who drew attention to the fact that targets and aspirations lead to actionable results.
A widening ‘aspiration gap’
Seema Malhotra emphasized that the findings of the Diversity UK survey “suggest a widening ‘aspiration gap’ between the leaders in business and society and the leaders of our public institutions.” She called upon the government to show “leadership from the top, particularly to give candidates the confidence to put themselves forward and the belief that it is worth the time and effort to do so.” She asked which diversity targets for new public appointments are in place and whether they are for increasing representation by gender, ethnicity and disability? She also queried what guidance is given to Departments on their recruitment processes on how to increase the diversity of suitable candidates at the application stage? What reviews are being undertaken of how effectively Departments recruit, and what powers does OCPA (Office of the Commission for Public Appointments) have to challenge those that do not perform well?
The Minister for Civil Society, Mr Nick Hurd MP, answering for the government agreed that “businesses that reflect their customers are much better able to understand their needs and can offer them better services as a result. The same must be true of the public sector. Board members exert significant influence over our lives. They deal with issues that affect a lot of people and shape the public services that we use.” He explained how “the Government has taken unprecedented steps to open up the public appointments process to new talent. We have made the process more transparent to improve access to vacancies. Alongside this, we have placed a new emphasis on ability and skills, rather than prior experience, to ensure that key roles in public bodies are open to the widest field, instead of a narrow merry-go-round of the same old candidates that has been a feature of the system to date.”
An anomalous year
The Minster would not be drawn on questions of targets for ethnic minority representation stating that “the present Administration is not particularly keen on targets” although he did highlight that “transparency is a new element. As we know, it is a great driver of behaviour and keeps people’s feet to the fire.” He said that “it is regrettable that last year the number of successful BME candidates fell from an average of about 7.9% of appointments and reappointments since 2001-02 to 5.5% last year. We are disappointed about that, because it matters to us. We are hopeful that this will prove to be an anomalous year, and that the work that the Cabinet Office and the Commissioner for Public Appointments have been doingto increase diversity in public appointments will reap rewards in the next set of published figures, which will be transparent and will be monitored by the House and outside.”
Click here for the Adjournment Debate on Diversity in Public Appointments - Hansard Transcript.
You can watch the Adjournment Debate (started 7:39:15 hours in)
http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=14991
About Seema Malhotra
Seema Malhotra is Member of Parliament for Feltham and Heston. In October 2013, she was promoted in Ed Miliband’s reshuffle to the Labour Whips Office. Before that Seema was Parliamentary Private Secretary to Rt Hon Yvette Cooper MP, Minister for Women and Equalities, and a Member of the Justice Select Committee. Seema is also Chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party Business Group. She is co-founder and Director of the Fabian Women’s Network and a former National Chair of the Fabian Society.
Visit www.seemamalhotra.com