Select committees began holding “pre-appointment hearings” with the Government’s nominees for key public appointments in 2008. Reviewing the “experiment”, in its final report of the last Parliament, the Liaison Committee recommended “that a list of criteria governing the posts subject to pre-appointment hearings be established and a revised list of such posts be agreed between the Government and the Liaison Committee”.
The Committee also recommended that a revised set of guidelines on the nature and purpose of pre-appointment hearings be agreed between the Cabinet Office and the Liaison Committee. These recommendations followed a research project commissioned jointly by the Liaison Committee and the Cabinet Office conducted by the Constitution Unit of UCL.
The Committee is expected to produce a report to the House towards the end of July.