A WATCHDOG has raised transparency concerns over a raft of public appointments made by Stormont's health department in the absence of a minister.
The department has appointed 16 people to boards across five public bodies since the beginning of this year – despite a minister usually being needed to run recruitment processes and approve new appointments.
Among them are four non-executive appointments announced on Wednesday to the board of the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service (NIFRS).
The appointments were carried out even though the Commissioner for Public Appointments in Northern Ireland (CPANI) last month found a series of flaws in the department's recruitment process.
The commissioner Judena Leslie said she was "surprised" the Department of Health (DoH) had made several appointments in the absence of a minister without consulting her office.
But the department defended its actions, and insisted its permanent secretary Richard Pengelly can make appointments without ministerial sign-off.
Northern Ireland has not had a power-sharing government for more than a year amid political deadlock, leaving civil servants to run Stormont departments.
A backlog of unfilled and extended public appointments has built up following the political institutions' collapse, with Ms Leslie last year warning the problem had made gender equality targets "impossible to attain".
The Code of Practice for Ministerial Public Appointments in Northern Ireland refers to the appointment of applicants being the "minister's decision".
Last year it emerged some departments had begun recruitment processes in the absence of ministers for some vacancies, including the four NIFRS board posts advertised last September by DoH.
At the time the department said ministerial approval to advertise had been obtained from the outgoing minister, and there was "no intention to make any appointments in advance of a minister being in place".
CPANI received a complaint about the recruitment process and concluded its investigation last month.
In the report, Ms Leslie said the selection panel failed to properly document the complainant's application assessment, and the marking system was "flawed and problematic".
She also said the issues "exposed the selection panel to the risk of complaints of abuse of process", although she stressed no evidence of this was found.
Ms Leslie told The Irish News: "I was surprised to learn that the Department of Health, in the absence of a minister, had proceeded to make the final decision and appoint members to a number of public boards without prior consultation with my office.
"In these circumstances the public appointment code requires that departments seek an exception to the code in order to permit an appointment to be made by departmental officials.
"It is important during this period of absent local political leadership that departmental officials when making decisions comply fully with regulatory regimes such as the public appointments code. They should do so in an open and transparent way in order to ensure public confidence.
"I have concerns about a number of aspects of the appointments process for the NIFRS. Some of these concerns are dealt with in the complaint report I recently published.
"There are, however, additional issues around transparency and compliance that my office is actively pursuing with the department."
Three public appointments have also been made by the Department of Agriculture Environment and Rural Development (Daera) for two public bodies, one of which would fall under CPANI's remit.
CPANI said Daera had asked it to grant an exception to the code of practice, and commissioner was "content with the rationale and transparent approach adopted by the department".
DoH did not address questions over all its public appointments, but defended the NIFRS board appointments.
A spokeswoman said: "Schedule 1 of The Fire and Rescue Services (Northern Ireland) Order 2006, states the department will appoint non-executive members to the NIFRS board.
"In the absence of a minister the permanent secretary, as the head of the department, can execute this function.
"By making the appointments to the NIFRS the department has ensured that the NIFRS board is able to meet its governance and accountability responsibilities."
