In 2001 the employment part of the then Department for Education and Employment and the Department of Social Security merged to form the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). The new Department was set up amongst other things to carry out the Government's plans for helping people who want to work find a job and keep it.
The Minister for Disabled People at that time wanted to ensure there was a Committee in place that could offer government Ministers and officials in the DWP and Jobcentre Plus advice specifically on disability employment issues. As a result, the Minister set up the Disability Employment Advisory Committee (DEAC) in 2002. The Chair was appointed in August of that same year and twelve members were recruited between August and December.
The intial recruitment to DEAC did not attract many people from Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) backgrounds. Consequently, in order to bring a wider experience of diversity onto DEAC, five BME Advisers were appointed in 2003. Their term of work with the Committee ended in December 2005.
The Advisers' contribution was seen as vital to ensuring DEAC was a fully informed, diverse and representative Committee. In addition to contributing to DEAC's Project Work, the Advisers helped to identify why more people from BME backgrounds did not apply to become Members of the Committee when it was first set up. They also put forward ideas on what could be done to attract people from BME backgrounds to future recruitment exercises for positions on public bodies (not just to DEAC).
The current members of the DEAC Committee took up appointment on January 2003, and were recruited for a 3-year term. However, at the end of their first term, four of the members, for various reasons, decided to step down and the Minister Anne McGuire authorised a recruitment to replace them.
Our target was to recruit new members, who fulfilled the requirements in terms of diversity and experience, to the committee to bring it up to full strength for the February 2006 meeting. This would cover the stepping down of both the four Members and the five advisers.
We anticipated recruiting four new Members, whilst acknowledging we needed to ensure we fulfilled specific requirements to increase the participation of:
Following the interviews, it was decided to appoint six members to ensure the diversity of the Committee was fully fulfilled. The new members are:
The recruitment for the position of Chair of the Committee, took place shortly afterwards. The current Chair, Sally Witcher was coming to the end of her 4-year term on 4 August 2006 and had decided to step down. The successful candidate, Elaine Noad, took up duty at the end of September 2006.
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