MACS - good practice in planning, attraction and assessment - 2015

Key learning outcomes

• Panels that learn from previous appointment rounds design better processes
• When a board has gaps in specialist knowledge, skills or experience these can be prioritised over more general governance skills. This approach delivers a diversity of new members instead of people with prior public sector board experience. 
• Making the initial application stage simple makes the process more open to a wider and more diverse pool of applicants
• Large scale events being run for other reasons present opportunities to publicise opportunities to potential applicants with the right backgrounds. 

Background

MACS provides independent advice to Scottish Ministers on transport accessibility for disabled people. The regulations that established MACS mean that the Convener and at least one-half of the members of the committee have to be disabled persons. 

This round was to find four new members. The Commissioner allocated a Public Appointments Adviser (PAA) to participate in the planning stage for the round but not the stages of assessment. The same PAA had worked with this selection panel on a previous MACS appointment round in 2013 which was also representative of good practice. 

The nature of the work of the body means that this selection panel had a keen understanding of accessibility issues and how to address them. Our PAA’s report on planning for this latest round referred to how receptive the selection panel was to proposals to adopt new approaches in order to make the appointments process more accessible still.     

Planning

The panel chair convened an initial meeting to discuss recent guidance on application of the Code that the Commissioner had issued in August 2014. As well as making the panel aware of this guidance, the PAA referred to the fact that the Scottish Government and Commissioner’s office had been working together on drafting a competency framework for board members to facilitate proper application of the guidance. The PAA provided an advance copy of the draft framework to the panel for information. Although it was provided as a “work in progress” both the panel and the Public Appointments Team (PAT) manager of the Scottish Government agreed that using it would aid with design of the competition and so it was used on that basis.     

Publicity 

The panel, having considered the management information gathered from the previous round, which had been considered to be very successful, decided to take a similar approach this time. They agreed not to publicise the appointments in the media. Rather, the publicity was targeted to relevant groups and individuals as well as appearing, as with all other vacancies, on the appointed for Scotland website. 

While the constitution of the body requires at least 50% of members to have a disability, this current round did not have to identify anyone in this category due to the balance of the committee at the time. Nevertheless, the publicity would, for reasons attributable to the work of the body, seek to encourage applications from people with disabilities. 

A proactive targeted publicity strategy was developed. Target audiences included disabled people and people with experience of disability issues as well as transport professionals. News of the appointment round was disseminated around the Transport Accessibility Steering Group. This body is chaired by Transport Scotland and includes representation from transport service and infrastructure providers, local authorities, Regional Transport Partnerships and disabled people’s organisations representing a spectrum of mobility, sensory and mental impairments, including learning disabilities. The steering group has an extensive and diverse range of contacts and its members were asked to use their networks to disseminate the news and given template wording to do so. Groups invited to the Transport Accessibility Summit in March 2015 which were not on the steering group, such as SCOTS and the Scottish Dementia Working Group, were also contacted by email, informed of the appointment round and invited to disseminate the news to their membership. 

Application and assessment

The panel agreed to use an application form that was as short as practicable. 

To minimise the number of questions on the form, it was agreed that candidates had to provide responses to:

• two essential criteria with a maximum of 300 words per criterion
• a minimum of one from a choice of four ‘optional’ essential criteria with a maximum of 300 words in total
• a short statement to demonstrate ability ‘to an acceptable level’ against three generic skill areas with a maximum of 500 words in total.

The panel decided to use this approach to allow the potential for candidates with strong specialisms but less strong generalist board member skills to be identified as most able and suitable for appointment. The approach was very much in keeping with and informed by the Commissioner’s guidance and by the competency framework.   

The panel was confident that those who brought the new specialisms considered important to the board at the current time would be able to develop the more generic board membership skills over time as well as learning from those on the committee who already had such skills.

The pack contained a welcome letter from the MACS convener, which made it clear that prospective candidates could contact her to discuss any aspect of the competition and the positions being filled.
 
Ninety minutes was allowed per candidate during interview to ensure that there was plenty of time both for assessment and to record panel views.

Conclusion

Our PAA’s view was that a positive, proactive and flexible approach demonstrated by all during planning resulted in a simpler, more accessible and attractive process for prospective candidates. The outcome of the appointment round can be downloaded from the following hyperlink to a press release about the appointments.

We also received subsequent constructive feedback from the chair of the panel about making the appointment process more accessible for applicants with learning difficulties in future. She indicated that this was now actively being considered by the Scottish Government.