Under the Tory government the boards of NHS trusts and health authorities were dominated by men and didn't reflect the make up of the local community. Many didn't live locally and some showed little commitment to the principles of the NHS. Most trade unionists were banned by law from membership. Labour pledged we would make NHS boards more representative of the communities they serve. As health secretary I upheld that pledge. Half of those I appointed are women, and the proportion of black and Asian appointees has almost doubled to 12%. In London, where a quarter of the adult population is black or Asian, a quarter of board members are black or Asian. I also increased the proportion drawn from carers, users, or voluntary bodies to 20%. Most live in their areas. I can't see much wrong with that. But the commissioner for public appointments and the scrutiny panel aren't at all happy - and their unhappiness isn't confined to party affiliations.
The panel rather condescendingly admits that "it may indeed be the case that the inclusion of community service has tapped a pool of non-traditional suitable candidates". It is really big of them to concede that being a carer, or a member of a local voluntary group, or coming from a particular ethnic group, may bring to NHS decision-making insights and understanding which will benefit patients and staff.
But they go on to quote "one contributor to the scrutiny" as remarking "ministers will have to choose between able and effective (management) boards or an expression of equality". If such a statement were to be made by someone in the Metropolitan police it would be used as evidence of institutionalised racism. But the scrutiny panel doesn't include this quotation to illustrate the attitudes I was up against. Far from it.
Instead, they say they have heard of several instances of good candidates being rejected in order to meet equal opportunity targets.
I plead guilty. In any process of selection, some applicants will inevitably be rejected even though they are good candidates. The process would only be wrong if an inferior applicant got the job.
Why did the scrutiny panel conclude that the women or blacks or Asians who were appointed were inferior? After all, we are talking about the NHS where 75% of the staff are women and 21% of hospital doctors are black or Asian. I can't accept that some groups are fit to make up the workforce but are not capable of being decision-makers.
I told officials I found it hard to believe there wasn't more than one woman in say, Hertfordshire, or one black person in say, Birmingham, or one Asian in say, Southall, who was up to the job.
Of course some people got appointed who turned out to be below par. In a few cases it was necessary to get them to agree quietly to resign. As far as I can recall every one of these was a white man whose original appointment had very strong backing from the establishment.
The other main charge is that I appointed a lot of Labour supporters. I disappointed an awful lot more. At a Labour local government conference I was "given the bird" when I stated that I had no intention of "appointing Labour dead-heads in place of Tory dead-heads". Labour people are keen to serve the NHS under a Labour government while Tories are less so - particularly when the Tory party leadership have denounced most of the reforms we have introduced in the NHS, despite the fact that they have generally been welcomed by the professionals. In any case, three-quarters of the NHS appointees have no political affiliation, and the report concedes "no candidate has been appointed without going through the full appointments process".
The commissioner concluded appointments have been systematically politicised by:
a) asking MPs to comment on shortlists for people to chair boards; and
b) inviting nominations from MPs and local councils (of all parties).
The first practice was introduced by the Tories, presumably with the approval of the previous commissioner for public appointments, Sir Len Peach. Nominations from MPs and local councils were part of my effort to make boards more representative of the communities they serve. I thought local elected representatives would come up with some useful names.
What Dame Rennie Fritchie's report didn't mention was that I only introduced that after discussions with Sir Len Peach. He saw me as following his own approach to increasing the number of women and ethnic minority candidates - by increasing the number of good applications. Far from being embarrassed, I am proud of the way I carried out our pledge to make NHS boards more representative - even if some of them are Labour supporters.
I have asked Dame Rennie Fritchie to advise me on appointment procedures to be followed by the Mayor of London. My invitation still stands. But I make one thing clear, I want to appoint talented people and people who reflect the population of the city. Lots of people fit both requirements.
• Frank Dobson is Labour's candidate for mayor of London.
