Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, members, for presenting.
Certainly I noted the comments Ms. Dench made regarding the testing. I want to go to that. There are three issues that the Harrison report, as you call it, refer to. There was the objective written testing, the merging of the selection board and the advisory board, and the appointment of three of six members to the ultimate committee.
Firstly, with the testing, the report says, “The new test, per se, seems to us to represent a reasonable yardstick for screening candidates against the declared Member competencies.” So he came to the conclusion that the test is good.
He went on to say, “Candidate performance, against each of the four competencies assessed at the test phase, is graded from an 'A' (this is the low rating, 3 points), to an 'E' (the high rating, 15 points). Applicants scoring only A’s against the four competencies (12 points) are screened at the test phase.” That's how it should be.
Then he looked at what was actually happening, and he said, “It's important to note that under present practice a large number of candidates (28% of the current batch of referrals to the minister)”, who went through the advisory board and also through the selection board, “have failed to meet the agreed minimum competencies (i.e. at least 4 'Cs' and no grade less than C)”. They were screened in after this process.
I'm asking Mr. Allen, specifically, would you agree with the Harrison report in the sense that an objective written test is a good thing? His recommendation was to actually set a passing mark and screen out anyone who doesn't pass, as opposed to having the 28% failing.
