Tag Archives: PACAC

Public appointments: what are they, and why do they matter?

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This is the first edition of this briefing. It has since been updated. Read the most up-to-date version and other briefings on the Constitution Unit’s website.

Public appointments – senior appointments made by ministers to various public service roles – are vital to the working of government, but some have attracted controversy in recent years. Lisa James explains how public appointments work, and how they might be reformed.

Background

Public appointments – various senior appointments made by ministers to public bodies – can have a major impact on how well the public sector operates. Though the system often works smoothly, recent years have seen some high-profile controversies linked to public appointments, notably those surrounding Paul Dacre’s application to be chair of Ofcom, and the appointment of Richard Sharp as chair of the BBC. These and other cases have raised questions about whether the system now needs additional safeguards.

Why do public appointments matter?

These appointments include senior roles across a wide range of public bodies – including delivery or policy advisory bodies, regulators and funders, as well as departmental non-executive directors. They also include individual roles (for example, commissioners for victims, further education, or children).

The holders of public appointments can therefore have a major impact on the successful delivery of policy and services. A well-functioning public appointments process, which can engage and deliver the best candidates, matters for the quality of governance. This is demonstrated in countries where control over appointments has allowed backsliding leaders (i.e. those who seek to erode democracy) to install allies in key positions.

Given that the holders of public appointments are so important to the working of government, ministers understandably want to be confident that these posts are held by people who are in sympathy with their aims and approach. But it is important for public trust – and successful delivery – that appointments are also made on merit, and cronyism or patronage is guarded against.

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Parliamentary scrutiny: what is it, and why does it matter?

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This is the first edition of this briefing. It has since been updated. Read the most up-to-date version and other briefings on the Constitution Unit’s website.

Parliamentary scrutiny is at the heart of UK politics. In this post, Meg Russell and Lisa James examine the four key methods of parliamentary scrutiny, and offer proposals on how to strengthen it, calling for better behaviour by government and strong engagement from backbenchers.

Background

Parliament lies at the heart of UK politics. The legislature is a core institution in any democracy, but is particularly important in the UK, due to our tradition of ‘parliamentary sovereignty’. The government is dependent on the confidence of the House of Commons, which can potentially remove it from office. Parliamentary consent is required for primary legislation, and parliament is a particularly central and important body in holding ministers to account day-to-day.

This makes scrutiny – the detailed examination of policy proposals, actions and plans – one of the essential roles of parliament. Other functions include representation, and serving as a space for national debate – which in turn feed into parliament’s scrutiny function.

This briefing summarises why parliamentary scrutiny matters, what different kinds of parliamentary scrutiny exist at Westminster, some recent concerns about the decline of scrutiny, and ways in which it can be protected and strengthened.

Why does parliamentary scrutiny matter?

The government is responsible for much day-to-day decision-making, in terms of national policy formulation and implementation. But the government itself is not directly elected, and depends for its survival on the continued confidence of the House of Commons. This makes parliament one of the central checks and balances in the constitution – arguably the most central one of all. To provide government accountability, one of the core functions of parliament is scrutiny.

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Rebuilding and renewing the constitution: the territorial constitution

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A Constitution Unit report by Meg Russell, Hannah White and Lisa James, published jointly with the Institute for Government, provides a menu of constitutional reform options ahead of political parties’ manifesto preparation. Its chapters will be published in summary form on this blog throughout August, with this third excerpt identifying potential changes relating to the territorial constitution.  

Recent years have been unsettled ones in UK territorial politics, with structural pressures following the Brexit vote, and other tensions between the centre and the devolved institutions. Meanwhile, the devolution arrangements for England remain an incomplete patchwork.  

While wholesale reform may be complex and contentious, much can be done to mitigate the tensions that exist within the existing framework. There is widespread recognition that cooperation between the UK government and devolved institutions could be improved, and some positive steps in this direction have already been taken. With the fiercest battles about the implementation of Brexit now over, opportunities exist for strengthening interparliamentary arrangements. The governance arrangements for England could also be made more transparent and coherent.  

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The parliamentary battle over Brexit and the constitution

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Today sees the publication of a new book by the Unit’s Meg Russell and Lisa James, The Parliamentary Battle over Brexit. Here the authors summarise some of its key findings about why parliament was drawn into such controversy over the implementation of Brexit. They reflect on what these events teach us about our constitution, as well as what may need to change in order to avoid repeating such problems, and to mend the damage done.

The UK’s arguments over what became known as Brexit began long before the June 2016 referendum, and continued with increasing bitterness afterwards. Parliament was often central, both as a venue for such arguments, and in terms of disputes about its proper role. It and its members frequently faced criticism and blame. Our new book, published today, charts The Parliamentary Battle over Brexit, from the early pressures for a referendum, through disputes about the triggering of Article 50 and control of the House of Commons agenda, the repeated defeats of Theresa May’s deal, and Boris Johnson’s unlawful parliamentary prorogation, to the UK’s eventual departure from the EU following his deal. The book charts what happened, but also asks what went wrong and whether things could have been handled differently. It reflects on what these events teach us about the functioning of our constitution, and what if anything might need to change.

The book includes a wealth of detail about key political moments, and the roles of different individuals and groups. Here we focus on some of the bigger questions about the lasting legacy of the battles over Brexit for the culture and institutions of UK politics, and particularly for the place of parliament itself. A fuller version of this analysis appears in the final chapter of the book.

Referendums and public participation

The referendum of 23 June 2016 was only the third ever such UK-wide vote (the first being on European Community membership in 1975, and the second in 2011 on changing the House of Commons voting system). The handling of the referendum was the single biggest error of the Brexit process, from which many other difficulties flowed.

Unlike the 2011 referendum, which was underpinned by legislation setting out the detail of the proposed new voting system, no clear prospectus was offered to the voters for Brexit. Prime Minister David Cameron hoped to use the vote – described disapprovingly by the House of Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee as a ‘bluff call’ referendum – to make the question of Brexit go away. Parliament never debated the substance of the question, the government did not detail the options, and civil servants were forbidden from preparing for a Leave vote. Leave campaigners argued at the level of principle, rather than on a specific plan. As one Brexit-supporting interviewee told us, ‘it was only [after the referendum] that different types of Brexit started coming to the fore. Soft Brexit and hard Brexit had never been canvassed before the referendum; the expressions were coined afterwards’. Issues that would soon come to dominate the agenda, such as membership of the Customs Union or Single Market, and crucially the Northern Ireland border, were barely mentioned during the campaign. This left the government – and parliament – in a very difficult position. The different options for Brexit had to be established only after the vote had taken place, and on this the voters had conveyed no clear instruction.

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