The Honours System

Book excerpt: The evidence is still that honours are more likely to be awarded to civil servants and celebrities than to people who volunteer in their local community. The Committee heard that the process of awarding honours remains opaque, even to the Queen's representatives in the counties, the Lords Lieutenant. PASC calls for an increase in the proportion of people receiving honours for work in their local community, rather than to those who are awarded for their work as civil servants and in the wider public sector. This report sets out proposals to increase accountability and transparency and strengthening the link to the Monarch. These include: the introduction of an independent Honours Commission to consider nominations (a repeat recommendation from the last parliament); that the Prime Minister's "strategic direction" over the honours system be removed; a rebalancing of the proportion of honours awarded to civil servants and public sector workers, and volunteers in their local communities; that longer citations should be published, explaining the reason for awarding an honour; that the Lords Lieutenant should have an opportunity to consider and comment on all nominations for an honour within his or her lieutenancy; and that the Cabinet Office set out proposals for broadening the range of people who take up roles as independent members of the honours committees. The Committee also recommends, considering the decision to strip Fred Goodwin of his knighthood, that the Honours Forfeiture Committee be made independent and transparent, with clear and expanded criteria for forfeiture, chaired by an independent figure, such as a retired high court judge