“in an open, transparent and independent manner…”
As the BBC reported on Thursday, the Northern Ireland Department for Regional Development has advertised for applications to a new permament board of directors at the troubled NI Water to replace the interim appointments made earlier this year.
According to the advert in the Irish News
It is expected that a Chair will be appointed in early 2011, with the remaining Non-Executive Directors being appointed in the Spring.
Although, if the DRD statement in the BBC report is anything to go by, Spring may be late next year…
In a statement the Department of Regional Development (DRD) confirmed that it had launched a “full appointments process” to replace the chair and up to four interim directors.
The DRD said the process was expected to take six months to complete and would be “carried out in an open, transparent and independent manner”.
Terms and conditions appear to be the same as before.
And if it does take six months that would be beyond the original remit of the interim NED appointments – which, from June 30, was for “an initial period of up to 9 months”.
Assuming the interim Board of NI Water will remain in place until their permanent replacements are appointed.
Speaking of which, when does Máirtín Ó Muilleoir actually “step down” from the Board?
Topic: Government
Region: Northern Ireland
My meagre pension could be supplemented by an appontment to a Board…….Is former Tax Inspector, Conservative Party and NI Womens Coalition member Fecicity Huston still the person I should contact about doing something really useful……at a negotiated price ……for the Community?
They really do need to increase the pool of “talent”.
No. You just need to apply for the job.
Ms Huston’s job is to make sure that, if appointed, you would not be acting through of some form of vested or political interest. Something she was prevented from doing in the case of interim appointments.
Now, it would be interesting to know *conclusively* what led the Minister to take such a highly irregular decision.
And as a general rule ..is there not a list of people who have expressed interest in serving the community held on file?
Not sure what you mean?
The Commissioner’s job is more to do with oversight, rather than actually making the appointments. The key is keeping an eye on who’s connected to whom and in particular to make sure that external commercial (and political) interests are not insinuating themselves into the public system.
That requires more than a list. I would say (without actually knowing it) that it requires a very pro-active research capacity.
“DRD put a case to me seeking an exception to the Code allowing the normal procedure of advertising to be suspended and permission to approach several individuals, (the individuals were not named), as part of an emergency process to appoint non-executive Directors to the Board of Northern Ireland Water on an interim basis.
It was expected that any applicant, putting themselves forward after the initial approach, would be assessed against criteria set by DRD. Only those, who in the opinion of the selection panel, met the criteria, would be deemed suitable for appointment and their names presented to the Minister for his consideration.
Under section 1.10 of the Code I agreed to the exception on the caveat that even in these circumstances I required DRD to include a demonstrable element of independent participation in the assessment of the candidates.” .. CPANI Annual Report November 2010
CPANI-DRD correspondence published on the CPANI website.
Pete,
One for your other hat and all the other spaceniks. http://www.dailygrail.com/ daliy news ( scroll down ) Friday Dec 10 has quite a few intresting space articles.
“beyond the original remit”
Also beyond the election for a new Assembly so there might be a new ministry under a different party. I suppose it’s conceivable that the new chairman might be appointed prior to the election. Watch that space
http://applications.drdni.gov.uk/publications/document.asp?docid=20270
“By March 2011 ensure that all
public appointments undertaken
by the Department are in line
with best practice guidance
issued by the Commissioner of
Public Appointments.
On Track for
Achievement”
PT, is there any sign of that report Felicity Huston was going to carry out into the appointment of the interim board? Things seem to have gone a bit quiet on the ‘policing’ front.
“open and transparent process”
just like last time and the time before that