April 2001
House of Lords Appointments Commission
Report
Introduction
1. When we launched our invitation for nominations last September, we said
that a spirit of openness would characterise our work - subject only to the
rigorous protection of the confidentiality of nominees. Her Majesty The
Queen has confirmed her intention to accept the recommendation of the House
of Lords Appointments Commission and details have been announced of the
first 15 peers to be appointed under the new arrangements. These are
available on our website, together with this short account of our work so
far. Copies are also available by telephoning 020 7276 2315 or from the
Commission's offices at 35 Great Smith Street, London, SW1P 3BG.
2. Our report sets out:
An account of the process we have gone through and some facts and figures
on the breakdown of the 3,166 nominations we received by 17 November 2000.
Some of our own thoughts and comments as to what we consider went well and
where we might make improvements.
Some issues that we feel need to be addressed in going forward.
3. As always, we welcome any thoughts and feedback from nominees and others
- either by writing to us at the above address, by fax on 0207 276 2109 or
by e-mail
on enquiries@lordsappointments.x.gsi.gov.uk
The Process
4. The Commission made a number of changes to the process of identifying
those who might be recommended for appointment as independent, non party
political peers. (We have used the term " independent non party
political peers" rather than the traditional "cross-bencher"
as those sitting on the crossbenches in the Lords include peers who are
party political).
- First, we have made it possible for people to nominate themselves either
through the post, fax or the web. Any eligible citizen may honourably apply
to be considered for membership of the House of Lords. At the start, we
insisted on self-nomination because we wanted to underline that anyone
becoming a member of the House of Lords needs to show strong personal
commitment. Our further thoughts on this are set out in paragraph 23 below.
- Second, we published in full the criteria that we would use in assessing
nominees. We also published the process that would guide us in our task -
as far as we were able to forecast this at the time.
- Third, we made clear that those to be appointed should undertake to
contribute to the work of the House of Lords. Until now, for those peerages
announced in the Birthday and New Year's Honours lists there has been
no such condition unless appointed as working peers.
- Finally, we decided to invite candidates to meet us - like anyone being
considered for a particular job or public appointment.
5. The launch, in September 2000, also broke new ground in opening up the
process for recommendations on the appointment of new peers through an
approach already widely established in looking for high quality applicants
for jobs or public appointments. People knew how and when to apply and we
made clear that we were looking for outstanding people from all parts of
the country. We sent out 15,000 information packs, and recorded 5,000 hits
on our website.
- We wrote to some 10,000 organisations covering almost every sector of
society setting out our aims, our selection criteria and our processes. We
asked them to identify suitable candidates and also help spread our message
to those who worked with them and for them.
- We began a series of meetings around the country to share our approach
and to encourage people to think seriously about coming forward. So far we
have visited Edinburgh, Cardiff , Manchester and Belfast. We intend to
continue with this programme.
6. By 17 November, we received 3166 completed nomination forms, of which
about 500 came via the web.
7. We then began an extremely rigorous sifting process - with a number of
checks and counter checks to ensure that the criteria were applied
consistently at all stages.
Top
Stage 1
8. Before the assessment began, a number of objective eligibility checks
were made on all nominations - for example, it is a statutory requirement
that those considered for appointment be UK, Commonwealth or Irish
nationals, aged over twenty one. Where these criteria were not met we wrote
to nominees to ask them for clarification. As a result a number of
nominations were ineligible for further consideration.
Stage 2
9. We then tested the assessment process against the published criteria to
make sure that consistency would be maintained through a number of sifting
stages.
10. In a first sift, the Commission worked with six trained sifting teams
to assess all the nominations over a period of two months. During this
stage, the Commission made a series of random checks on the process to
ensure that assessments remained consistent with the selection criteria.
This did not result in changes to these assessments. Each team member
undertook an initial assessment based on the published criteria and their
separate assessments. These were discussed and agreed jointly before being
passed to the Commission for the next stage of sifting. Where a team was
unable to agree an assessment, this was made clear when putting this
forward to the Commission.
Stage 3
11. Nominations which had come through the first sift were looked at
independently by at least two Commissioners, who then discussed and agreed
a joint assessment. Where a Commissioner team was unable to agree, a
nomination was discussed further with other Commissioners.
Stage 4 - Further Checks Made on Assessments
12. As a further check on the process, the Commission Chairman personally
reviewed the assessment of all 3166 nominations and identified a very small
number of nominations to be re-considered by the Commission. In a further
review, the Commission Secretariat put forward others. In addition, each
Commission member considered full details of those nominations that had not
come through previous stages.
Stage 5
13. At a full Commission meeting, it was agreed to invite nominees, whom we
judged as the most outstanding against our published criteria, to meet us.
The sheer quality of nominations received meant that we met more people
than we would be able to recommend.
Stage 6
14. At interview, each nominee met at least two Commissioners, including
the Chairman - at some three or more Commissioners were present. The same
procedure and format was used for each interview.
Stage 7
15. Following interviews, the Commission went through a series of
discussions before approving the final list. In all these, we sought to
identify those, who in our judgement, were the most outstanding nominees in
relation to the criteria for selection that we had established. This was a
difficult task in the light of the very high quality of nominations
received. However, it is worth noting that although, of course, there were
some differences of view, we were able to reach agreement quite easily on
those we wished to recommend for appointment.
16. We have set out this process in full. We have said that we intend to be
as transparent as is consistent with protecting the confidentiality of
nominees. We also wanted to make clear that whilst in such tasks inevitably
judgements have to be made, we have approached this with the care and
consideration it deserved. This has involved looking at a large number of
nominations several times to make sure that a rigorous, meticulous approach
was taken in supporting these judgements.
Top
Prior Knowledge of Nominees
17. The Commission has set out publicly its procedures to ensure that all
prior knowledge, acquaintance or friendship with nominees would be fully
declared.
We wish to emphasise the importance placed on declaring even the slightest
acquaintance with a nominee - for example, if a Commissioner had shaken
hands with someone once twenty years ago and could remember that meeting -
it was declared.
18. At the initial sifting stage, Commissioners recorded any acquaintance
with the 3166 nominees. At the later stages, individual Commissioners
completed more detailed declarations and these were made available to all
Commissioners. Overall, at each stage, Commissioners knew only a small
percentage of the nominees being considered. It is interesting to note that
of the 15 nominees recommended for appointment, no Commissioner had met
more than six before the start of the process
19. For the record, we wish to make clear that no member of the Commission
was approached about a nominee in a way that he or she felt was not open or
proper or where he or she felt it was necessary to declare that attempts
had been made to influence him or her in a way that would affect the
objectivity of the judgement of the nominations.
The Nominations
20. Annex A provides a breakdown of the nominations we received. Given our
methodology, this final profile is self- defining. However, we want to look
to a future where we can benefit from our experience of these new
arrangements so as to take the initiative, perhaps, in encouraging
nominations from a wider range of the UK population. We said that we hoped
that by opening up the process we would attract outstanding applications
from groups that are under represented in the House of Lords and the
following comments may be of interest:
(a) Some 20% of nominations came from women. This is a rather larger
percentage than for most British institutions. But it falls short of what
we were hoping to achieve in view of the current under-representation of
women in the House of Lords.
Although we received a good number of outstanding applications from women,
we would like to receive more. We will continue to encourage women with the
skills and experience to contribute in the Lords to come forward to achieve
a balance that better represents the people of the UK. It has been put to
us that allowing only self-nomination may have discouraged some women. In
the next round, for a variety of reasons, we will be allowing nominations
put forward by others (see below).
(b) Some 15% of the nominations came from members of ethnic minorities -
nearly three times the proportion of these groups in the population as a
whole. We were pleased to receive a number of high quality nominations - as
reflected in our recommendations - and it is clear that we have been able
to make a good start.
(c) 45% of the nominations received were from people living in Greater
London or the South East - compared with 26 % of the UK population as a
whole.
We would like to have received a larger number of nominations from people
living outside London and the South East. Of the 15 people we have
recommended for appointment, nine have their main address in London or the
South East and six live outside this area. However, of the nine, the
majority were born and brought up elsewhere; in fact, only four of the 15
nominees may truly be said to have come from London and the South East.
There is no question in our view that the issue of both distance and the
expenses and allowances available to members of the House plays a part in
this. This is not strictly our concern. However, it may be worth observing
that someone living within, say, an hour's travelling distance from the
House of Lords will find it easier to balance their responsibilities there
with those of their working and family life than people living, say, in
Newcastle or Belfast. In addition perhaps it is also worth noting that
there is often a pressure on people to come to live in London and the South
East in pursuing their personal careers or interests.
We hope to encourage further outstanding people from other parts of the
country to come forward and we will be continuing with our programme of
visits across the United Kingdom to get this message across.
Top
Key Issues Going Forward
21. At this time, it is not yet clear how the next stages in the reform of
the House of Lords will be carried forward. Clearly, we must take account
of any developments in our work. Subject to future changes, we will
continue to invite nominations with a view to making future
recommendations.
22. For our first list - and in the light of the very new and unprecedented
arrangements - we thought it right to set a date by which nominations
needed to be received. Last September we had no idea how many nominations
we might receive and therefore to help us in an unknown task we decided to
consider all those received by 17 November. From now on there will be no
closing date. The process of inviting and considering nominations will be a
continuous one, punctuated by the Prime Minister's requests for
recommendations on the appointment of further independent non party
political members of the House of Lords.
23. Features of our work before we consider a new list of recommendations
would likely to be:
(a) We will shortly be announcing that we will be happy to consider
nominations from other people as well as self-nominations. As explained
above, the process of self-nomination was designed to underline the
personal commitment required. But it is possible that some strong
candidates may have been reluctant to take the initiative themselves
although they were ready to undertake the necessary commitment if nominated
by others. We are anxious to widen the field of outstanding people who may
help to do this.
(b) We plan to write again to the same 10,000+ organisations (and others)
to make it plain that we continue to look for people able to make a
contribution to the work of the Lords and to seek their help in finding
them.
(c) We will continue the process of getting to know through interviews
those nominees that we might consider recommending over the next few years.
These will include people we have already had the opportunity to meet but
did not recommend this time and those that we would like to interview but
have not yet had the opportunity to do so.
(d) In addition, as mentioned above, we plan to hold a series of meetings
across the UK to which we will invite people from every sector of the
community in the hope of stimulating outstanding nominations.
24. Finally - and at the risk of straying into territory that is not
strictly our concern - we raise the issue of life tenure. We are concerned
that those we have recommended for appointment will enter the House of
Lords under the " old order" - appointment for life under the
1958 Life Peerages Act. We note the Wakeham Report recommendation that
membership at the House of Lords in the future should be for a fixed and
limited term and that a number of nominees we interviewed also raised this
issue.
Comparision of figures between nominees, House of Lords and the UK
population
|
|
Nominees
|
House of Lords
|
UK population
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
3,166
|
696
|
59,500,000
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Gender
|
|
|
|
|
Men
|
81%
|
84%
|
49%
|
|
Women
|
19%
|
16%
|
51%
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ethnic origin
|
|
|
|
|
White
|
85%
|
97.4%
|
94.5%
|
|
Non-white
|
15%
|
2.6%
|
5.5%
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Disability
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Consider themselves
|
|
|
|
|
disabled
|
15%
|
*
|
15%
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Nationality
|
|
|
|
|
British
|
98%
|
*
|
*
|
|
Irish
|
0.6%
|
*
|
*
|
|
Commonwealth
|
1.4%
|
*
|
*
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Age
|
|
|
|
|
60 or under
|
61%
|
31%
|
79%
|
|
61 or over
|
39%
|
69%
|
21%
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Regional background
|
|
|
|
|
South West
|
9%
|
*
|
8%
|
|
South East
|
18%
|
*
|
14%
|
|
East Anglia
|
6%
|
*
|
9%
|
|
London
|
27%
|
*
|
12%
|
|
East Midlands
|
6%
|
*
|
7%
|
|
West Midlands
|
6%
|
*
|
9%
|
|
Wales
|
4%
|
*
|
5%
|
|
North West
|
9%
|
*
|
12%
|
|
Yorkshire
|
4%
|
*
|
8%
|
|
North East
|
3%
|
*
|
4%
|
|
Scotland
|
5%
|
*
|
9%
|
|
Northern Ireland
|
2%
|
*
|
3%
|
|
Other
|
1%
|
*
|
*
|
Notes:
1. The regional background of nominees is taken from the address in the
nomination form. We believe that the figure for London is substantially
overstated since many people working in London during the week regard their
regional background as elsewhere in the United Kingdom.
2. The House of Lords figures are based on our analysis of the biographies
of current peers.
3. * indicates that either the figures are unavailable or the comparison is
invalid.
Top
