People's Panel (Hansard, 29 October 1998)

§ Dr. Jack Cunningham

I am pleased to announce that the People's Panel, made up of 5,000 people from across the UK, has now been set up. The Panel will be used to find out what members of the public think about the services for which they pay. It is further evidence of this Government's commitment to listen to people in framing its policy for improving public services.

	Senior civil service	Band D	Band B	Band A	Total
	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female
Total	1	—	—	1	1	1	2	5	4	7
White	1	—	—	—	—	—	2	—	3	—
Non-white	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	2	—	2
Disabled	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
No form returned	—	—	—	1	1	1	—	3	1	5

The Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration is covered by the Civil Service Order in Council 1995 which requires that all departments and agencies should recruit on the principles of fair and open competition and selection on merit in accordance with the Civil Service Commissioners' Recruitment Code. The office ensures that all recruitment is conducted on this basis and that all recruitment is subject to internal audit and review by the Civil Service Commissioners.

The Office is required to report the number of occasions on which the permitted exceptions to fair and open competition and selection on merit were used at each level (except for appointments up to 12 months). The only exception the Office has made is to convert a number of short-term appointments to permanent posts in Bands D and E, where the initial publicity did not state that such appointments could be so converted. This was done as a result of an increase in workloads and organisational changes.

246W

I have today placed in the Libraries of the House a copy of the results from the first wave of research conducted with the Panel.