Appointments Panel

The Appointments Panel considers applications for those positions on Council which are directly appointed by Council. It is usually Chaired by the General Secretary, save for when the Panel considers applications for the incoming General Secretary when the Treasurer will step into the Chair.

The Appointments Panel is comprised of four members of Council (including the General Secretary in the Chair) and members are approached subsequent to the receipt of nominations from for the roles advertised so as to ensure no conflicts of interest between Panel members and candidates. The Panel is appointed to reflect the diversity of Council’s membership, particularly in relation to:

      a. Gender balance, and insofar as possible, other legal protected characteristics

      b. Spread of disciplinary expertise

      c. Inclusion of both appointed and elected members of Council

      d. Inclusion of both members who have served on a panel before and those who have not.

      e. Insofar as possible, balance of geographic spread of panel members, particularly in relation to the balance between members from the UK and Ireland.  Where appropriate, it has added additional members to ensure geographic representation.

The process for Council-appointed positions

• At the December meeting of Council each year, the Chief Executive informs Council of the posts where successors need to be identified during the following calendar year, to be announced to the membership at the AGM.
   
• Council considers the composition of the governance structure and whether it wishes to inform the membership that it is keen to identify candidates from particular groups, for example if it feels the makeup of Council could better represent the membership of the Society in terms of gender, geography or subject expertise.
   
• Applications are sought from the microbiology community in the early part of the calendar year.
   
• The General Secretary reviews the applications and forms the Appointments Panel avoiding members with conflicts of interest.
   
• Each member of the Appointments Panel reviews anonymised versions of the applications independently and submits their ranking to the General Secretary.
   
• The General Secretary compiles the rankings, the Panel uses the compiled rankings as the basis for its discussion during its final review of the nominations.
   
• At the July meeting the General Secretary, on behalf of the Appointments Panel, brings forward the nominations to Council for appointment, with a recommendation from the Panel.