Seòmar agus comataidhean

Excellent. That is very good.

I would like you to give us some background on the job description of the public appointments advisers, because that is not a staff position but a contractor position. How does that work, and how is that going?

How frequently is there a refreshing of the contractors? How does that work?

Good morning, Ian. Welcome back to the committee, and well done on being able to comply with the Auditor General’s list of recommendations. Were there 10? I cannot remember.

Right, okay—there were 22 altogether.

I will ask you first of all about resource, because that was one of the challenges that you had to deal with when you came into office. How is that going now? Where are you in terms of your complement?

There are 100-odd appointments every year.

What about the profile of those people? You will understand the reason why I am asking that in relation to recruitment to public bodies, which is an important part of what you do. What is the profile of the people who act as public appointment advisers?

Can you give us a sample of the different backgrounds that they have?

I will get to the point of why I am asking about that. I understand that protected characteristics and diversity are important, and I can see that a lot of effort goes into those considerations, but one aspect of the profiles of those who serve on public boards is that they are all pretty much alike. For example, they predominantly have high incomes. The number of people who serve on boards or who are chairs of boards who earn low to middle incomes is pretty small compared with the number who earn over £75,000 a year. The people who are appointed to public bodies, including chairs, also predominantly have public sector backgrounds. Relatively few of them—maybe around half as many—are from the private sector, and even fewer are from the voluntary sector. What is happening that means that there seems to be that replication, with the same sort of people joining those public body boards? From an optics point of view, that seems to be somewhat less than optimal.

Are they predominantly public sector people with high incomes?

A refresh.