GOVERNMENT plans to set up a cross-party scrutiny committee of privy councillors to oversee the appointment of a new BBC chairman were criticised by the Commons public administration select committee yesterday.
The committee, which has long campaigned for public appointments to be taken out of the hands of ministers and given to an independent commission, claimed the government had fallen short of ''a proper solution''.
In a statement issued shortly after Tessa Jowell, the culture secretary, assured MPs that the new head of the corporation would be chosen ''fairly, freely, and with the best interests of the BBC at heart'', Tony Wright, the panel's chairman, suggested that any appointments made by ministers should be approved by a select committee of MPs.
He said: ''In one sense, what the government has proposed for the BBC is a step towards what we proposed, as it acknowledges the problem with the key constitutional appointments under the present arrangements.
''But this is an opportunity to go further, either towards an independent public appointments commission or by having key appointments confirmed by parliamentary committee. By inventing a little scrutiny panel of the great and the good, I fear that the government may have acknowledged the problem without having produced a proper
solution.''
Ms Jowell, who has adopted a conciliatory tone since Gavyn Davies, the former BBC chairman and Greg Dyke, the former BBC director general, resigned last week in the wake of the Hutton inquiry, made an emergency statement about the future of the BBC in the commons.
She promised the ''double lock'' of a transparent appointment process and a scrutiny panel made up of privy councillors from the three main
parties.
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