Schedule 1
Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill
9:10 am
Andrew Selous (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; South West Bedfordshire, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 71, in schedule 1, page 44, line 12, at end insert—
‘(2) The person appointed to chair the Commission, and the chief executive and non-executive directors of the Commission, must have—
(a) relevant experience of leading, or senior management in, a large public or private sector organisation, and preferably,
(b) a demonstrated knowledge of family policy law.’.
Thank you for your guidance during our last debate, Mr. Chope. The point of the amendment is to ensure that the people appointed to chair the commission and to be its chief executive and non-executive directors should have the relevant management competence to lead this new organisation and some knowledge of the area of public policy that CMEC will deal with.
I am surprised that the advertisement for the chair has already been placed, given that we have not yet set up the organisation. Is that not slightly presumptuous of the Government? I know that they have to forward plan, but that two-days-a-week post has been advertised at £100,000 a year. That works out at an equivalent annual salary of £250,000 a year, which is considerably more than that of our new Prime Minister, who earns around £187,000 a year. I do not begrudge a large salary for the chair of the organisation. It is an extremely important job, and it requires the right set of skills, determination and focus to ensure that the agency delivers day in and day out on getting money to the children who need it and looks after parents with care, non-resident parents and children.
Concerns have been expressed in the past that occasionally appointments seem to be made with slightly more party political attachment than one would hope for. The House of Commons Library has informed me about appointments to health trusts in recent years. In one analysis, there were shown to be 206 self-declared Labour activists, 28 Conservative activists and 27 Liberal Democrat activists. Again, I am not making a assumption—I am merely seeking reassurance that the people whom we recruit to chair the new organisation will be absolutely the best people for the job, regardless of their background.
The need for relevant experience is important. Just because a person has been the chairman or chief executive of a large, private sector organisation, or because they have run a chain of supermarkets extremely well, that does not necessarily give them the right skill set to make a success of CMEC.