Permanent Secretary at the United Kingdom Department for Digital, Culture Media and Sport (DCMS), Sarah Healey says she’ll take advice from other Departments about their public appointments practices after it emerged that the DCMS had a policy of not seeking references for shortlisted candidates.
Ms Healey (pictured) was speaking at a special hearing of Parliament’s Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee called after the choice for Chair of the Charity Commission, Martin Thomas, quit days after his appointment when details of previous conduct issues emerged.
The Permanent Secretary, whose Department is responsible for around 400 regulated roles, faced repeated accusations that her Department was failing with major appointments.
Mr Thomas had been due to take up the Charity Commission post on 27 December but stepped back after media outlets reported that he had faced three formal misconduct complaints during his five years as Chair of Women For Women International UK.
MPs on the Parliamentary Committee reacted with surprise when Ms Healey told them it was not DCMS policy to take references for public appointments candidates and had not done so as part of the recruitment process that led to Mr Thomas’ selection.
“Increasingly, references are not seen as a helpful part of recruitment processes in the private sector, broadly because they tend to confirm terms of someone’s employment,” Ms Healey said.
“Obviously the outcome of the Charity Commission appointment was deeply disappointing for everybody involved.”
She said the DCMS now recognised it could have checked with the Charity Commission itself to see whether there were records of issues flagged with any charities that the shortlisted candidates had involvement with.
“We will talk to the public appointments teams in other Departments about how they handle this, both in terms of volume, but also making sure that they are useful documents and add value,” Ms Healey said.
London, 19 January 2022
