Robert Pyper

Monitoring the public appointments process in the UK

Abstract The system for monitoring, regulating and reporting on the way in which UK government ministers make appointments to the boards of public bodies is a relatively neglected area of public management. A decade after the establishment of the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments (OCPA), little attention has been paid by academics to the functioning of this agent of accountability (a particularly British device), despite the importance of transparency and accountability for the new public management and modernization. This article seeks to examine the key issues surrounding the Commissioners for Public Appointments as agents of accountability, by examining the tensions in the relationship between OCPA and the executive, variations in the governance arrangements for the Commissioners across the devolved polity and the key findings and recommendations of a number of official reports, while locating these issues in the context of current debates about modernization and ‘representativeness’ in public bodies.

The British Civil Service: Perspectives on ‘Decline’ and ‘Modernisation’

This article was stimulated by the contradiction between two predominant characterisations of the British civil service. Some analysts see it as in decline, possibly terminally, overwhelmed by the challenges posed by the reforms and the changes in its policy environment; others see it as in the vanguard by adopting modernising reforms and adapting to new public service values. After critically examining these opposing perspectives on civil service ‘decline’ and ‘modernisation’, we conclude that these contrasting analyses suffer from adopting too limited a view of the British civil service in its historical and international context. The British civil service has during its long history progressively modernised and in a progressive way—becoming less corrupt, more accountable, more pluralist, more responsive to citizens’ needs—often sceptical about reform, but nevertheless moving with the times.

The Civil Service: A Neglected Dimension of Devolution

Devolution comes in the wake of a decade of substantial reform in the civil service. The establishment of the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly is likely to have significant implications for the civil service in Scotland, Wales, and perhaps also at the centre. However, on the evidence of the official publications and debates generated by the policy process to date, this issue has been given consideration only belatedly and in rather limited form.

Modernisation and gender representation: the enterprise sector in Scotland

Purpose – A key aspect of the governments modernisation programme is to promote greater gender balance and diversity across public sector institutions and services. This includes appointments to and membership of public funded bodies. This paper reports on initial research on gender representation on boards in the Scottish enterprise (SE) sector.Design/methodology/approach – A survey of membership by gender of SE and local enterprise company (LEC) boards; questionnaire survey of board members (n=66 – 43 male, 23 female); elite interviews.Findings – Gender imbalance skewed in favour of males to an even greater extent than the public appointments sector as a whole. Women were more likely to approach board membership through formal means than by personal contact. Men and women had different views about personal contribution made to boards. Women surveyed tended to serve on more boards than did men. There were major procedural differences and inconsistencies between LECs and between LECs and SE regarding boa...