Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask Her Majesty's Government (1) why they have convened a new interview panel for the selection of the new chair of Ofcom, (2) why they changed the job specification for this position after the initial inconclusive appointments process, and (3) whether unsuccessful candidates from the previous appointments process are eligible to re-apply.

The previous Secretary of State decided to re-run the first competition to appoint a new Chairman of Ofcom, as he was not presented with a choice of high-quality candidates from a diverse field. This decision was supported by the Commissioner for Public Appointments, the Rt. Hon Peter Riddell CBE. The competition that was launched on 1 November 2021 is an entirely new competition and, as such, has a new advisory assessment panel. The essential criteria were amended to ensure they would attract a diverse field of applicants and these have been publicly available on the public appointments website since this process launched. The panel, whose names have also been published, will be responsible for assessing candidates objectively against these criteria.

The process to appoint the new Chairman of Ofcom will be run in line with the Governance Code for Public Appointments, which means it must be a fair and open process. It would not be permitted under the code to prevent previous candidates from applying.