In your report (MPs oppose Nicky Morgan’s choice of Ofsted head, 7 July), you say “the decision … is believed to be only the second time a parliamentary committee has sought to block a government nominee for public office”. In fact there have been four previous occasions when a select committee has recommended against appointment. We know this from research we are conducting on pre-appointment scrutiny hearings. The relevant select committee recommended against appointing Dr Maggie Atkinson to be children’s commissioner for England in 2009; against Diana Fulbrook becoming HM chief inspector of probation in 2011; against Professor Leslie Ebdon being appointed director of the Office for Fair Access in 2012; and against Dominic Dodd becoming the chair of Monitor in 2014. Maggie Atkinson and Leslie Ebdon were nevertheless appointed; but in both cases the secretary of state was summoned to justify the decision in response to an urgent question. Diana Fulbrook was not appointed, and Dominic Dodd withdrew. A further candidate, Dame Janet Finch, withdrew from her nomination to be chair of the UK Statistics Authority after her appearance before the Treasury committee in 2011.
Although committees do not have a power of veto, they clearly have the power to force the government (and occasionally, the candidate) to think again. Their scrutiny powers will be all the more important since the government accepted the Grimstone recommendations to allow ministers on occasion to dispense with open competition, or to select a candidate who was assessed non-appointable by the interview panel.
Professor Robert Hazell, Peter Waller and Turan Hursit
Constitution Unit, UCL
