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An Offa the Prime Minister can't refuse

Stuart Hallifax

The fuss around Professor Les Ebdon's nomination to be Director of the Office for Fair Access (Offa) has stoked up the debate over the role and power of select committees over public appointments and the partisan deals made over public policy.

Les Ebdon, vice-chancellor of the University of Bedfordshire, is the nominee of Business Secretary, Vince Cable. The cross-party BIS select committee interviewed Ebdon and rejected his appointment with a 4-2 division on clear party lines: four Conservatives objected to Ebdon’s appointment and two Labour members supported it (the Liberal Democrat member and two others did not attend the hearing). The committee’s view was only advisory, though, so the decision of Liberal Democrat minister Cable stands and Ebdon is due to take up his post next week. The Conservative members of the committee have continued to criticize the appointment in the media, but the Prime Minister claims that he is unable or unwilling to overturn Cable’s decision, leading to the allegation by one Conservative member of the committee that the David Cameron “is so in thrall to the idea of Coalition that he's compromising his conservative values and alienating MPs and voters.” This week, it has been reported that David Cameron has negotiated that, in exchange for the appointment, Cable will drop proposed financial punishments for quick repayment of student debts (an extra charge on excess payments to deter wealthier graduates from paying off their debts early and avoiding rising interest on the money they owe as they earn more, later in life). A Downing Street source is widely quoted (including in the Guardian) as saying that, “The Lib Dems were very keen to appoint Ebdon, and we felt very strongly about penalties for early repayment of loans.” This exchange of an official appointment that could last only three years for a change of government policy looks a lot like politicisation of appointments; if this has been done as a deal between the parties, it reflects badly on the way government policy is decided. The whole saga also relates to the role of select committees in scrutinising appointments.  At present, only the Treasury Select Committee has a veto over appointments: those of the chairman of the Office for Budget Responsibility and its independent members. The Justice Minister has accepted an ‘effective veto’ from the Justice Committee over the appointment of the Information Commissioner; the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman is ‘jointly recruited’ by Parliament and the Government. Meanwhile, hearings are required for more than fifty other posts but the committees’ opinions are not binding on the government. The extension of veto power would signal further growth in the power and independence of select committees, something that the Conservative chairman of the Treasury Select Committee, Andrew Tyrie, has called for but which, as Tyrie acknowledges, the Government is not keen on. In its July 2011 report on select committees and public hearings, the Liaison Committee agreed with the suggestion in our Balancing Act report to establish tiers of appointments with different levels of scrutiny: an ‘A List’ of appointments that committees can veto; a middle tier for which hearings must be held but committees’ views are not binding; and a lower tier of appointments that committees could choose whether or not to scrutinise. This arrangement would strike a balance between the benefits and dangers of parliamentary scrutiny set out in our report. The Offa directorship is not the first appointment to which committees have objected, with negative reports on the prospective new Children’s Commissioner in 2009 and HM Chief Inspector of Probation in 2011. In December, Jill Rutter wrote an IfG blog on the Public Administration Select Committee’s worries about the way the proposed new head of the UK Statistics Agency had been chosen; the candidate stood down and the process was begun again and another, widely-praised candidate was nominated and approved by the committee with no trouble. In this case, and that of the probations inspector, the posts were in our ‘A List’ of appointments where vetoes should be allowed. It is interesting that the debate over select committee scrutiny this week should have arisen over the directorship of Offa, which was not deemed to require a committee veto in our report or any statutory scrutiny by committees according the Liaison Committee. It is a body that works on behalf of ministers, rather than one that acts as a watchdog over the government; the latter are those for which select committee oversight can be most usefully deployed. The heated argument over Professor Ebdon’s appointment shows very publicly the division in the coalition over university funding and access. The debate also highlights the desire of increasingly independent select committees for greater power, but the result has been to expose divisions within the coalition and within the Conservative Party. The row and the ‘horse trading’ over the appointment underline the uncertain status of select committees’ involvement in public appointments. At the very least, Vince Cable should return to the committee to explain why he has decided to override their recommendation.

An Offa the Prime Minister can’t refuse

The fuss around Professor Les Ebdon’s nomination to be Director of the Office for Fair Access (Offa) has stoked up the debate over the role and power of select committees over public appointments and the partisan deals made over public policy.

Les Ebdon, vice-chancellor of the University of Bedfordshire, is the nominee of Business Secretary, Vince Cable. The cross-party BIS select committee interviewed Ebdon and rejected his appointment with a 4-2 division on clear party lines: four Conservatives objected to Ebdon’s appointment and two Labour members supported it (the Liberal Democrat member and two others did not attend the hearing). The committee’s view was only advisory, though, so the decision of Liberal Democrat minister Dr Cable stands and Ebdon is due to take up his post next week. The Conservative members of the committee have continued to criticize the appointment in the media, but the Prime Minister claims that he is unable or unwilling to overturn Cable’s decision, leading to the allegation by one Conservative member of the committee that the David Cameron “is so in thrall to the idea of Coalition that he's compromising his conservative values and alienating MPs and voters.”

This week, it has been reported that David Cameron has negotiated that, in exchange for the appointment, Cable will drop proposed financial punishments for quick repayment of student debts (an extra charge on excess payments to deter wealthier graduates from paying off their debts early and avoiding rising interest on the money they owe as they earn more, later in life). A Downing Street source is widely quoted (including in the Guardian) as saying that, “The Lib Dems were very keen to appoint Ebdon, and we felt very strongly about penalties for early repayment of loans.” This exchange of an official appointment that could last only three years for a change of government policy looks a lot like politicisation of appointments; if this has been done as a deal between the parties, it reflects badly the basis on which government policy is decided.

The whole saga also relates to the role of select committees in scrutinising appointments. At present, only the Treasury Select Committee has a veto over appointments: those of the chairman of the Office for Budget Responsibility and its independent members. The Justice Minister has accepted an ‘effective veto’ from the Justice Committee over the appointment of the Information Commissioner; the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman is ‘jointly recruited’ by Parliament and the Government. Meanwhile, hearings are required for more than fifty other posts but the committees’ opinions are not binding on the government. The extension of veto power would signal further growth in the power and independence of select committees, something that the Conservative chairman of the Treasury Select Committee, Andrew Tyrie, has called for but which (as he notes) the Government is not keen on.

In its July 2011 report on select committees and public hearings, the Liaison Committee agreed with the suggestion in our Balancing Act report to establish tiers of appointments with different levels of scrutiny: an ‘A List’ of appointments that committees can veto; a middle tier for which hearings must be held but committees’ views are not binding; and a lower tier of appointments that committees could choose whether or not to scrutinise. This arrangement would strike a balance between the benefits and dangers of parliamentary scrutiny set out in our report.

The Offa directorship is not the first appointment to which committees have objected, with negative reports on the prospective new Children’s Commissioner in 2009 and HM Chief Inspector of Probation in 2011. In December, Jill Rutter wrote an IfG blog post on the Public Administration Select Committee’s worries about the way the proposed new head of the UK Statistics Agency had been chosen; the candidate stood down and the process was begun again and another, widely-praised candidate was nominated and approved by the committee with no trouble. In this case, and that of the probations inspector, the posts were in our ‘A List’ of appointments where vetoes should be allowed.

It is interesting that the debate over select committee scrutiny this week should have arisen over the directorship of Offa, which was not deemed to require a committee veto in our report or any statutory scrutiny by committees according the Liaison Committee. It is a body that works on behalf of ministers, rather than one that acts as a watchdog over the government; the latter are those for which select committee oversight can be most usefully deployed.

The heated argument over Professor Ebdon’s appointment shows very publicly the division in the coalition over university funding and access. The debate also highlights the desire of increasingly independent select committees for greater power, but the result has been to expose divisions within the coalition and within the Conservative Party. The row and the ‘horse trading’ over the appointment underline the uncertain status of select committees’ involvement in public appointments. At the very least, Vince Cable should return to the committee to explain why he has decided to override their recommendation.

Topic
Parliament and the constitution

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