Boards of Public Bodies: Representation

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Monday 24th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, I start by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, for his report and this debate. His report includes some notable quotes, including about his public “dis-appointments”—which I thought was particularly apposite when, although 13% of the economically active population are disabled, they make up just 3% of public appointments. There is also the absence of the Government’s response to the report, but I hope that we will hear from them shortly, together with their refreshed Public Appointments Diversity Action Plan, which the Minister promised us this month when he spoke in this House on 9 May.

I have been on a journey over the past 50 years. Initially, I saw this issue as an equal opportunities matter: why could not we—women, working-class, BAME, or disabled people—get on to the top boards? When I started work, it was mitigated to some extent, particularly on the class basis, because trade unions were able to nominate to various public sector boards and, in doing so, were able to sweep up those of great ability who had learned via the experiential route about people management, responsibility, representation and some listening and decision-making skills—those who had made their way in life, as my noble friend Lord Brookman, put it recently or, as the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, said, had valuable lived experience. As the noble Lord pointed out, when selection criteria favour sector experience or seniority and put less emphasis on skills, output and lived experience, those with more interesting, non-standard CVs tend to lose out.

That is why I started thinking about the issue of representation. Then I noticed something more fundamental: the loss of talent through those groups being unrepresented. We all miss out when people of ability are denied a rule in important decision-making in public bodies. Thirdly, I realised that organisations simply could not be effective if they did not reflect the groups that they were set up to serve. The most obvious example was the lack of disabled representatives in organisations that existed solely to meet their needs. Without their voices, such bodies were almost bound to fail.

It took longer for society to recognise the role that patients should play in the health service, parents in education or users in other sorts of service provision, and to realise that unless boards reflected the variety of the relevant user group, the most important voices would never be heard when decisions were taken. On NHS boards, where the whole of society needs to be represented and where, although I am guessing, more than 50% of patients are female, although the representation of women on boards has made progress, as the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, said, it peaked on NHS boards in 2002 and has since fallen from 47% to 38% in 2018.

Much worse, and almost unbelievably, just under half of NHS trusts have no BAME board members. The appointment of BAME candidates as non-execs has actually fallen over the past eight years. That is nothing short of shocking.

In the report of the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, the first recommendation stands out. It states:

“Government should adopt an interim target of … 11.3% disabled public appointees by 2022”.


Similar figures could be chosen for women, BAME people or indeed those from a working-class background. But what is key is that the Government must first set a target and then take responsibility for achieving it.

The earlier Grimstone report’s first recommendation similarly spelled out:

“Public appointments are the responsibility of ministers and they are accountable for the decisions that they take and the processes that are followed”.


They cannot shy away from that, and the lack of concrete progress must be laid at their door. Any other worthy proposals, from selection criteria, procedures, improved outreach, mentoring or role models, would then follow, were the Government to take responsibility and with it the required action—not just talk—to make change happen.

However, in all this, as Sir Gerry Grimstone writes:

“Good people won’t come forward … if the appointment system appears irrational”,


or,

“blatantly biased”.

I fear that his other recommendations made the system worse rather than better by giving a “much fuller role” to Ministers at the cost of potentially overriding the attempts of others to create a fairer and encouraging system. The 2017 code on public appointments required that:

“Ministers when making appointments should act solely in terms of the public interest”—


which seems to fly in the face of some highly political nominations that we have witnessed. That is not about equal opportunities.

We all agree that, as Sir Gerry wrote:

“Public appointments should be representative of our society”.


Of course they should—but that is not the reality. These bodies cannot speak for or on behalf of, nor serve, the needs of the relevant community if their boards come from a parallel universe.

As the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, said, my gender has seen some progress—especially in Scotland, where the 50% target for non-execs has been met—but for the disabled and black and ethnic minorities there is still a very long way to go. We are wasting their talent. They are denied the opportunity to serve and our public bodies are less effective.

In December 2017 the Government set an “ambition”—so much woollier than a target, with much less a promise—of 50% female and 14% BAME public appointments. It remains, sadly, a distant hope. So I look forward to some real commitment from the Minister so that we do not have to keep returning to this year after year. I trust that he will not disappoint.