Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Callanan on 6 July (HL1265), how the post of Technical Director of the UK Endorsement Board can have been recruited by the process set out in the attachment in the light of the metadata showing that this document was created on 29 April 2021, whilst Financial Reporting Council minutes indicate that the post had been taken by Seema Jamil O’Neill at some time before 18 June 2020.

The Technical Director was appointed on 1 December 2021 as a permanent role, following an open and transparent recruitment process for internal and external candidates as set-out in the attachment to my response to Question HL1265. Between 1 June 2020 and up until 1 December 2021 the role was filled on an interim basis, whilst the UKEB was being set up. The interim appointment was made through an internal secondment competition within FRC which included an application and interview process with representatives of FRC HR, BEIS and a Technical Expert from the Bank of England.