Media Centre

1. Appointment of new commissioners

The Lord Chancellor announced on 5 January 2012 the that The Queen had appointment the commissioners for 3 years: Her Honour Judge Taylor (circuit judge), Martin Forde QC (barrister), and Alexandra Marks (solicitor). The Ministry of Justice news release is here

This follows the campaign launched by the Ministry of Justice in July to recruit eleven Commissioners, to replace those who left the Commission earlier this year as well as those whose terms are due to expire at the end of January 2012.

We hope the other eight successful applicants will be announced by the end of this month.

2. Panel member recruitment

The open competition to recruit a new cohort of panel members, who will be deployed in the roles of chair and independent member, is well underway. A number of existing panel members have applied for selection for the new posts.  Some others have agreed to an extension until September to help enhance continuity. Shortlisting has recently taken place and interviews are scheduled to run from mid January through to February 2012.  The successful candidates will be deployed in both panel roles following their induction training at the end of March. 

There are currently 25 chairs and 33 independent members. After the selection exercise there will be up to 62 panel members in total.

5. Government and Parliamentary business

The Chairman and two of our Commissioners (Hazel Genn and JAC Vice Chairman Lord Justice Toulson) gave evidence to the House of Lords Constitution Committee on 7 December as a part of their inquiry into judicial appointments.  Details are available on the Committee's website here

On 21 November the Ministry of Justice published a consultation document 'Appointments and Diversity: A Judiciary for the 21st Century.' The JAC will be responding and we will publish our response on our website. The main focus is on senior appointment processes, although it also contains questions relating to the size of the Commission, whether non-legal roles should be a part of the JAC's remit and our involvement in the selection of Deputy High Court Judges.

6. Deputy High Court Judges

The JAC has recently agreed a new protocol with the senior judiciary to govern the regular requests we receive for such authorisations. The protocol will be available on both the JAC and Judiciary websites in due course.

In future anyone wishing to be considered for a future Deputy High Court selection will be able to visit www.judiciary.gov.uk and submit an expression of interest form to Judicial Office. Although the selection process for these posts does not fall within the remit of the JAC the joint protocol makes clear that candidates are expected to complete a self-assessment form which is based on the JAC’s qualities and abilities.

7. JAC change programme

a) Shortlisting
During 2012, the JAC will undertake a review of the shortlisting methods it uses. This will be a major piece of work, involving our partners and external experts in this field. An update on the scope of this work will be provided in future newsletters.

b) Online Qualifying Tests
In my update in November, I mentioned that the JAC was working towards moving tests online following feedback from candidates. We are currently piloting online testing in three exercises:

• Fee-paid Specialist Lay Member of the First-tier Tribunal, Health, Education and Social Care Chamber (Mental Health) and of the Mental Health Review Tribunal for Wales. The exercise launched in October and the online test was completed in November.
• Deputy District Judge (Magistrates’ Court). This exercise launched in November and the online test (involving almost 1500 people candidates) is planned for later this month.
• Fee-paid Specialist Member of the First-tier Tribunal, Social Entitlement Chamber, Criminal Injuries Compensation. This exercise launched in December and the online test is planned for early February 2012.

The tests will all be similar to those we have used previously. They will continue to be developed and marked by judges, agreed by our Advisory Group and will include a dry-run to quality assure the material and process and ensure people are not disadvantaged.  

Our expectation is that candidates will welcome the confidentiality that comes from being able to sit a test at a time and location of their choice. Online tests should also help to improve the speed and cost effectiveness of selection processes.

We will evaluate the pilots in Spring 2012 and update you further after that.

c) Use of Judicial Appraisals
The operation of appraisal regimes differs across both Courts and Tribunals. Appraisals regimes are extensively used across Tribunal Chambers at all levels, with the relevant JAC nominated Tribunal representative providing a reference, drawing upon appraisal material, where available. This approach will continue.

Within the Courts judiciary, the only appraisal system currently in operation is for Deputy District Judges (DDJ). The JAC supports the wider application of judicial appraisal. We have used DDJ appraisals as part of the last two District Judge (DJ) selection exercises and plan to pilot their continued use in DJ selection exercises for the next two years. This will provide for appraising judges to submit the latest DDJ appraisal in lieu of a reference. The DDJ appraisal form is closely linked with the JAC qualities and abilities and panellists have found the information contained within these documents very useful at the selection day.

8. JAC Official Statistics

The JAC published its latest set of Official Statistics on 1 December 2011 covering selection exercises completed between April and September 2011. In total, six exercises covering 110 vacancies were concluded during the six-month period covered. All except one exercise were for full time salaried roles. Four exercises were large enough to be reported individually.  There is also aggregated data on a group of three small exercises where the number of applicants and recommendations for appointment are too small to be shown separately while maintaining candidate confidentiality.

You can read the statistics here and the news release here

9. Diversity Forum

At the last meeting of the Diversity Forum, it was agreed that the chairmanship of the Forum will return to the JAC for 12 months starting in late spring 2012. I will update you in the next newsletter on our plans for the forum over the 12 months. We will of course, continue to implement the recommendations of the Lord Chancellor's Advisory Panel on Judicial Diversity and support partners in the implementation of their recommendations. I expect the next update to be published around May 2012.

10. IT

The JAC continues to work with the MoJ to refine our requirements for a new IT system to replace our ageing Equitas database. We are close to a solution and I hope that we will be able to settle the funding and contractual arrangements within the next month or so. Our current IT system, which was inherited by the JAC from the former Department for Constitutional Affairs in 2006, has extremely limited functionality and I hope that a new system will enable us to introduce a range of improvements to our processes and enhance the candidate experience.


Nigel Reeder 
Chief Executive
email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or his assistant   This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or call on 020 3334 0571