Mr. Martin Fraser:

I am a member of the commission, that is correct. I do not get to go to all the meetings so it may be that I missed the Deputy's correspondence. However we got there, and the committee is clear how we got there, there was a full, open TLAC competition for this post, which was run by the Public Appointments Service, who are people of the highest integrity. It has extremely clear rules and guidelines and a code of practice for these things. All the candidates were treated exactly the same. All the candidates got a fair shout at this and the person who got it, got it. I completely understand why people query the remuneration decision but I have to say the Public Appointments Service process was 100% above board. I cannot over-emphasise that service's integrity. It is absolutely straight down the line. Everybody was treated the same and everybody had to have the same chance of getting this job too, and they did - every candidate had the same chance.