Member

The section that we propose to remove gives the Minister a broad and loosely defined power to set, by regulation, the eligibility criteria for membership of the PSFA, including the ability to declare that a person is no longer eligible to serve. On its face, this may seem like a simple administrative provision, but, in practice, it grants a significant discretionary power to the very Minister whose department may at times be the subject of the authority’s investigations or scrutiny. We must ask ourselves this: what are the safeguards against that power being used, however subtly, to influence or constrain the composition of the authority in a way that undermines its independence? What guarantees are there that this power would not be used to exclude those who ask difficult questions, who bring an uncomfortable level of scrutiny or who have views that differ from those of the Government?