Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)

The Top Level Appointments Committee, TLAC, holds competitions for and advises Ministers and the Government on appointments to Civil Service posts at Secretary General, Deputy Secretary, Assistant Secretary and equivalent levels. Since early 2007 the policy has been that open competitions are held for Assistant Secretary, Deputy Secretary and equivalent posts. This policy has been recently extended to Secretary General posts, with the exception of a limited number of Secretary General posts which are filled by the Government without a TLAC competition. Where open competitions are held the normal practice is that the Public Appointments Service holds a preliminary competition and selects a shortlist of candidates for interview by the Top Level Appoints Committee, TLAC.

I am satisfied that the committee and the preliminary interview boards under the Public Appointments Service carry out their functions in a fair and objective manner. In any industry or business where posts are filled by an open recruitment process, one would expect candidates with experience of the business or industry to have an advantage and there is no reason the Civil Service should be any different. Some very credible external candidates, successful and unsuccessful, have come forward in competitions held to date but overall the proportion of external candidates with the levels of management experience and competencies that would make them suitable for appointment has been lower than one might have hoped for.

I will shortly be bringing proposals to the Government to restructure the Top Level Appointments Committee as provided for in the renewed programme for Government. However, I would stress that I do not consider that the composition of the committee is the main reason so few external candidates have been successful. I will also be proposing that the committee needs to consider new approaches to attract stronger external fields, including in appropriate cases an element of "head-hunting", while recognising that even where suitable candidates are identified in this way they would still have too undergo a competitive process.

See this speech in context