§ Mr. DobsonTo ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what percentage of appointments by the NHS Appointments Commission have been of disabled persons; [22206]
(2) how many and what percentage of the appointments made by the NHS Appointments Commission came from (a) business, (b) voluntary local organisations, (c) professions and (d) trade unions; [22207]
(3) how many NHS appointments since the Appointments Commission became responsible have become due; and how many have been made; [22208]
(4) what percentage of NHS appointments made by the Appointments Commission have gone to (a) women and (b) black and Asian candidates;
(5) how many of the people appointed by the NHS Appointments Commission have declared a party political connection; and what parties they are connected with. [22211]
636W
§ Ms Blears[holding answer 11 December 2001]The National Health Service Appointments Commission has been operational since 2 July 2001. Since then it has made 597 appointments, of which 464 related to appointments which had come to an end. The remaining 137 are appointments to new NHS trusts and primary care trusts.
Of those appointed 45.9 per cent. (274) were women, 9.4 per cent. (56) from the black and minority ethnic communities and 4.2 per cent. (25) declared that they had a disability.
35.8 per cent. (214) of those appointed had declared political activity. A breakdown is given in the table
Percentage Number Conservative 5 30 Independent 1.5 9 Labour 23.4 140 Liberal Democrat 5.4 32 Other 0.5 3 Details of the information recorded by the NHS Appointments Commission about the primary background of those it has appointed is given in the table.
Background Percentage Number Manager and administrator 26.8 160 Other professional 20.3 121 Health professional 3.2 19 Teaching professional 9.7 58 Science and engineering 0.8 5 Associate professional 4.5 27 Clerical and secretarial 0.7 4 Craft and related 0.2 1 Personal and protective 0.5 3 Other 0.2 1 Retired health professional 2.2 13 Retired—other 12.4 74 User/carer/voluntary sector 18.8 112
§ Mr. DobsonTo ask the Secretary of State for Health how many members of the NHS Appointments Commission are(a) women and (b) black or Asian [22210]
§ Ms Blears[holding answer 11 December 2001]The National Health Service Appointments Commission has four members who are women and none from the black or Asian communities.
§ Mr. NormanTo ask the Secretary of State for Health if the Chairman of the NHS Appointments Commission(a) is and (b) has in the past (i) been a member of a political party and (ii) made a party political donation in the last three years. [23813]
§ Mr.BlearsApplicants for posts on national health service boards are asked to declare any political activity in the last five years. Such political activity is defined by the Commissioner for Public Appointments and does not include membership of a political party. It does include information on political donations.
The chair of the NHS Appointments Commission declared in his application for the post that he had not been politically active, nor had he made any party political donations, in the previous five years.
637W