Speeches by Lamb.

“I spent my entire period of academia focused on the UK constitution and was a big believer that we had a document here and a way of working that seemed uniquely suited to the nature of our country. Unfortunately, the following 15 years have raised a number of questions about that: first, the willingness of Prime Minist…”

“They are generally well equipped to do the role. As far as you are aware, are most boards full or do they carry vacancies for long periods? And are there any reasons why that might be? I will open that one up.”

“In terms of well held, is it that it is best located there, or that they are currently undertaking that role very effectively?”

“Ms Glazzard, in practice what role does the board play in arm’s length body accountability?”

“Are there any other views people want to share on that?”

“Do you feel accountable?”

“Who do you feel accountable to?”

“That sounds like almost excessive levels of accountability.”

“Do you feel that that level of division between different organisations that you are responsible to may potentially result in things falling between the cracks?”

“Does that in any way impinge upon your ability to conduct the role, though?”

“Could I then broaden that out for the rest of the panel to ask, do you feel the current levels of accountability are effective, and where might there be potential areas for improvement?”

“Yesterday we had a Cabinet Minister and permanent secretary here, and one thing which really came out of that was actually, while there are all these different lines of accountability, there were areas that did not appear to fall directly within anyone’s particular remit, which is where things started to go wrong. I wo…”

“Is it the sponsoring Department that is overwhelmingly more involved in your bodies than those central policy Departments, at present?”

“Sometimes, Chair, it is useful to probe if there are reasons why something might be the case, but yes.”

“Would a greater central policy involvement be of help?”

“If it was not set up right, would that be a different story?”

“Do you feel that the requirements put on you by your Department are reasonable and proportionate?”

“Mr Smith, how resource-intensive do you and your members find it managing a relationship with your sponsor Department?”

“Is that Cabinet Office that is working through that?”

“Why do you think the process is so clunky?”