Policy paper

Direct Ministerial Appointments

Direct Ministerial Appointments are appointments made directly by ministers that are short-term and advisory in nature.

• From: Cabinet Office
• Published: 31 May 2022

Documents

Guidance on Making Direct Ministerial Appointments (PDF)

PDF, 209 KB, 15 pages

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Guidance on Making Direct Ministerial Appointments (HTML)

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Details

Direct Ministerial Appointments are public office holder appointments made directly by ministers, but which are not public appointments.  They are roles generally designed to be short-term in nature and very specific in both the scope of the activity to be undertaken and any desired outputs, where ministers often have a very narrow, particular candidate pool (or even individual) in mind.  Accordingly, there is significant flexibility applied to the appointment process, which is at the minister’s discretion.  

In most circumstances, given the short-term nature of a role and the usually very small potential candidate pool that meets the ministerial requirements for the role, they do not follow an open competition model.  However, the usual public law principles applicable to all ministerial decision-making will still apply.  Broadly - as reflected in the published guidance for government departments on making such appointments.

Appointments must be rational, procedurally fair and non-discriminatory and there must be compliance with the Public Sector Equality Duty.

Published 31 May 2022