Ethnic representation in Public Appointments
The Office of the Commissioner has today (18th July 2014) published its annual statistical release on appointments and reappointments made in 2013/14 to public bodies within the Commissioner’s remit. The statistics show a number of positive trends in the diversity of those being appointed to public bodies:-
- An increase in the proportion of women taking up public appointments – up from 35.6% in 2012/13 to 39.3% – the best performance since 2009/10 when the current data series began; for new appointments (i.e. excluding reappointments) the overall proportion is up to 41.1% (from 39.9%);
- An increase in the proportion of people from ethnic minority backgrounds taking up public appointments from 5.5% in 2012-13 (the lowest level in a decade) to 7.7%, again the best performance since 2009/10; and
- An increase in the proportion of people declaring disabilities taking up public appointments from 5.3% in 2012/13 to 7.7%.
These developments are very encouraging but there is the need for some slight caution:-
The overall number of public appointments has jumped markedly from 1,087 in 2012/13 to 2,150 in 2013/14. This sizeable increase (bucking the year-on-year downtrend in the overall number of appointments since 2006/7) is in large part driven by a considerable number (829) of additional appointments in the justice sector which have only recently come into the CPA’s remit and are included in the statistics for the first time. The statistical release shows that these additional appointments have impacted (in a largely positive way) on the diversity of those taking up public appointments. It is important that these encouraging trends are sustained.
Political activity
The statistics show that the proportion of those public appointees declaring political activity had dropped from 9.0% in 2012/13 to 5.0%. It has not been possible to collect political activity data for the 829 additional appointments in the justice sector. However, even when those additional appointments are excluded, the proportion of those public appointees declaring political activity is 8.1% (this is still the lowest figure in the last decade).
Click here to download a copy of the OCPA Annual Report 2013-14 (PDF)
