Mr. Adrian Tennant:

To clarify, when we went to fill the position of safeguarding manager, we went external. It was an open competition. We had a lot of good capable candidates. A comment was made earlier as to whether it was difficult to get someone in the current climate. We had 11 candidates, which was really good. I am a HR consultant but I had nothing to do with the process of evaluating and choosing the successful candidate, save for the final interview. The process that was put in place was second to none. It covered everything from desktop exercises, presentations in front of a different panel from us and then culminating in a regular form of interview which took place recently. I challenge any organisation to go through such a good robust process in moving from 11 to the five who we interviewed. We got a successful candidate out of that. That was very much an open competition.