National Lottery

Mr. Andrew Turner
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how many applications were received for membership of the Big Lottery Board; how many candidates were short-listed; how many were interviewed; and how many were appointed, broken down by declared membership of each political party in each case.

Tessa Jowell
[holding answer 11 December 2006]: A total of 428 applications to the board of the Big Lottery Fund were received; 48 candidates were short-listed; 43 candidates were interviewed; and 12 candidates were appointed.

Details of political affiliation constitute personal information which we have undertaken for the non-appointed candidates to keep confidential, in accordance with the Code of Practice of the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments (OCPA). Under the OCPA Code, candidates are asked to provide details of political activity. They may, but are not required to, produce details about party membership. Details of party membership of the appointed Board members were published in the interest of being open and transparent and with Board members consent. Five of the appointed Board members’ declared themselves to be members of the Labour party.

Decisions on whom to appoint were based on merit, following an open competition which was scrutinised by an OCPA-trained independent assessor. Political activity played no part in the selection process. No information about party affiliations was included in the papers that were submitted to Ministers about the appointments.