Boards of Public Bodies: Representation

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Monday 24th June 2019 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Holmes of Richmond]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to ensure that boards of public bodies are fully representative of, and reflect, the society they are set up to serve.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is a privilege and a pleasure to have secured this debate on how public bodies can more represent and reflect the societies they were set up to serve. I thank all noble Lords who have signed up to speak. Perhaps there is a fair degree of knowledge in this House of public bodies and public appointments. Part of the reason for securing this debate is that there is, I suspect, probably less knowledge out there in the country of public bodies and what they do. I will set out the ground as it currently is, run through some of the review I did for Government last year and then set out some recommendations for my noble friend the Minister to consider. I know that they have been under consideration in the Cabinet Office since I published the report in December.

Perhaps a useful start point is to consider what a public appointment is. It is a question that I asked some 17 years ago when somebody suggested that I apply for such a role. In those intervening 17 years, I have been fortunate enough to serve on public bodies on equalities and sport, looking at such issues as access to transport, funding for our Olympic and Paralympic athletes through to 2012 and beyond, bringing major sporting events to the United Kingdom and looking at diversity in UK television. That is just me—a microcosm of what public bodies do. Pick almost any area of society and there is likely to be a public body doing important work there: horticulture, defence, health, culture, media, sport, to name just a few. They are arm’s-length bodies doing incredibly significant work, but how many people in the country know about them, know what they do and, crucially, know how they could potentially play a part and be a member of the board of one of these organisations? Yet, there are 6,000 public appointees in the United Kingdom, with well over 500 public bodies responsible for over £200 billion of public spending. That is a quite significant governance role.

Perhaps the most important point in recent history for diversity and inclusion was in 2017, when my honourable friend Chris Skidmore published the diversity action plan. This was the first time we got to see the data. What was going on with these boards? Who were the people serving on them? What was their gender, ethnicity or disability? It was a key point to really drive home the sense that diversity is not about a leg up or an unfair hand, but about enabling boards to make better decisions to benefit from that diversity, not just of protected characteristics but of creativity that comes from it.

Probably the most important statistic that came out was an ambition for 50% of public appointees to be female and 14% to come from BAME backgrounds. No other targets were set. So how have public bodies performed in the intervening years? There is a tremendously positive story on gender, which demonstrates how change is possible and how we do not have to just accept that it is too difficult and that things cannot be other than what they are. In 2017-18, 47.7% of appointments went to females and in the preceding year it was 45.5%, whereas only four years previously the figure was 40%—a significant change not just by chance but because of real commitment from departments and Ministers engaging across women’s networks and society to see what would make a difference and connect gender to potential public appointments. When we consider the stats, the target of 50% by 2022 looks pretty achievable.

The story is perhaps a little more complicated with BAME, with the number last year falling to 8.4% from 9.1% the year before, with fewer BAME candidates and applications coming through to shortlisting. If the Government were to achieve the 14% target by 2022, it seems that there are many learnings to apply from the approach taken with gender to BAME groups.

My interest in diversity and inclusion has been since I began, really, which is why, when I was asked last year by the Minister for Implementation at the Cabinet Office, Oliver Dowden, to conduct a review into opening up public appointments for disabled people, not only was I delighted but I realised that this was an opportunity not just to see how we could potentially increase the number of disabled people on public bodies but actually to make recommendations that would benefit all people. I wanted the review to be absolutely rooted in the golden thread of talent. We are talking not about giving somebody a guaranteed interview as a favour, or having a more open or accessible application process, because that will give someone an unfair advantage. It might be the difference between enabling somebody to apply in any event.

I bracketed the work into four areas, which I will go through briefly: data and transparency, attracting talent, applications and interviews, and beyond. Data is obviously essential to this, and a key point is to consider whether we should have a central application portal, so that we can take a real grip on the data. We found patchy data that was different across departments and being collected in different ways, with different uses of the monitoring form—a form that definitely needs changes for consistent and inclusive language. I thank the Business Disability Forum for all the work that it did on that.

When we went to Scotland, where they have a central application portal—admittedly on a smaller number of public appointments—we found that they knew the disability status of 96% of their applicants. Currently, we know the status of only 65%, which is a huge difference. Coming back to those targets—50% on gender and 14% BAME—currently only 3% of people on the boards of public bodies are disabled, as far as we know. So data is absolutely critical, not only to ask the questions at application but to have an annual review, because obviously people’s circumstances change.

In terms of attracting talent, role models are incredibly important. When we launched the review in December, we had three excellent examples of disabled people doing great work on very diverse public boards. We advised the Government to have a mentoring scheme, having seen the difference that can make in other areas of diversity, and also, critically, to look at people who may be near misses at each beat of the application and interview on-boarding journey, to keep them in the loop and see how they can be assisted to the next potential application.

We looked at multipliers, conduits and connectors. Which outlets should we be looking at to raise the awareness of these opportunities? We looked at a huge use of social media, connecting with people in different ways, rather than the more traditional approaches to advertising public appointments. Also, critically, we need to look at executive search and its important role, and the need for guidance along Business Disability Forum lines, to ensure that it plays such a positive role for people who may seek to be involved in these roles.

When it comes to applications, perhaps the most important point is to consider disability confidence. There is such a range of views on this. Probably; as one person said, it is not great but it is better than what we had before. Having a sense of all public bodies being disability confident—as indeed their parent departments are—makes such a difference and shows that some thought has gone into how we enable disabled people to come on board and be part of this.

Finally, on interviews, if we want different results we need to look at different approaches—and maybe not just with the panel but with shadowing and mock boards, to put real innovation into that approach. Ultimately, it is about change. If we want different results, if we want public bodies to fully represent and reflect the society that they were set up to serve, we need to look at doing things differently. The gender case shows that it is entirely possible. I look forward to boards that fully represent and reflect the society they were set up to serve. I look forward to the contributions of noble Lords this afternoon, and to the Minister’s comments.