The politics of assessment centres: Building diversity in the UK judiciary Gill Kirton, Geraldine Healy and Mustafa Ozbilgin

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The politics of assessment centresBuilding
diversity in the UK judiciaryGill Kirton,
Geraldine Healy and Mustafa Ozbilgin

• Paper to MMU Business School
• 19th January 2011

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Politics of assessment centres

• Aim of study
• To investigate the value of assessment centres
  for increasing diversity in the UK judiciary
• Aim of talk
• To put our investigation of judicial selection
  centres in macro and micro political contexts

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Structure of presentation

• Macro politics surrounding the introduction of
  assessment centres for judicial appointments
• Micro politics of recruitment and selection,
  focusing specifically on assessment centres
• Research methods
• Research findings on assessment centres for
  judicial appointments

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Macro politics of judicial selection

• Demographic composition of judges pre-2005
• Dominance of public school, Oxbridge educated
  over 80 had attended Oxbridge
• White male domination 18 women 4 BME
• Socio-political issues
• Concern around public confidence
• Concern around impact of judicial decisions on
  wider society
• Concern around impact of judicial decisions on
  BME communities
• Employment/HR issues
• Job security of judicial post holders means once
  appointed, its more or less a job for life

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Macro politics of judicial selection

• The work of judges competing rationalities
• Constrained autonomy
• Intensity of case loads
• Impact of political influences at different
  levels
• Professional judgement versus political influence
• Professional judgement versus consequential
  impact of decisions

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Macro politics of judicial selection

• Traditional recruitment and selection methods
• Secret soundings with serving members of the
  judiciary
• Involved asking senior judges to rate performance
  of lawyers (mainly barristers) they had observed
  in court
• Widely thought to preserve judicial independence
• Suitable candidates invited to formal panel
  interview with Lord Chancellors department

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Macro politics of judicial selection

• Peach Report 2001 charged with considering the
  appropriateness and effectiveness of
• a) The criteria for judicial appointments, and
• b) The procedures for selecting the best
  candidates
• The extent to which candidates are assessed
  objectively against the criteria for appointment
• The existence of safeguards in the procedures
  against discrimination on the grounds of race or
  gender

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Macro politics of judicial selection

• Peach Report recommended ACs
• The stated purposes were
• To ensure that the most able, gifted and
  suitable people, who meet all of the criteria for
  appointment, are selected for judicial posts
• To introduce selection methods and procedures
  which are seen to be fairer, more open and
  transparent in which applicants, the legal
  profession and the public can feel more confident
  and which demonstrably support the Lord
  Chancellors policy statement on equal
  opportunities

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Micro politics of judicial selection

• What are assessment centres?
• A structured combination of assessment techniques
  that are used to provide a wide-ranging, holistic
  assessment of each participant (Garavan and
  Morley 1997160).
• The common features of assessment centres are
• Assessment in groups
• Assessment by groups
• The use of multiple techniques (e.g. ability
  tests, peer evaluations, performance tests)
• The use of simulation and situational techniques
  (e.g. role-playing exercises) assessment along
  multiple dimensions (Garavan and Morley 1997).
• Multiple methods become a proxy for predictive
  evaluation of subsequent job performance and
  therefore a more objective and valid basis on
  which to make appointment decisions (Iles 1992
  Dayan et al. 2002 Tyler and Bernardin 2003).

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Micro politics of judicial selection

• ACs a technocratic solution?
• Clear rules for both recruiters and candidates
• Greater processual and decision transparency
• More accurate selection decisions based on hard
  evidence
• From a liberal equality perspective reduces
  opportunity for recruiter subjectivity and bias

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Micro politics of judicial selection

• BUT, paradoxically ACs neglect macro and even
  micro political and social processes
• The desired outcome was greater diversity, but do
  liberal equality (procedural) measures always
  achieve this?
• A deep understanding of the socio-economic causes
  of inequality is not taken into ACs
• Potential for the exercise of recruiter bias
  could remain

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Research methods

• Analysis of documentation DCA internal
  documents, assessment centre (AC) guidance notes
  and application forms, assessors notes and
  evaluations, consultee (referee) reports
• Listening to tape recordings of AC activities
• Interviews with recent judicial applicants (both
  successful and unsuccessful) 11 Black and
  minority ethnic (BME) women, 9 BME men, 10 white
  women and 10 white men, only 3 Oxbridge graduates
  (39 interviews)
• Interviews with AC assessors
• Quantitative analysis of one judicial appointment
  competition involving 386 applicants

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Selecting judges through ACs

• Competency framework
• Nine competencies identify both what is to be
  done and how it is to be done (the work of a
  judge)
• Diversity is incorporated into some of the
  competencies
• Application form self-assessment against the
  nine competencies (non-professional, life
  examples are allowed and in theory encouraged)
• Sift (shortlisting) process by panel
• One-day Assessment Centre
• Individual interview by mixed panel of
  professionals (HR and management as well as
  legal)
• Legal case assessment written test
• Written test of legal knowledge
• Role play managing a court case

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The dynamics of micro political control in
assessment centres

• Assessor practices and perspectives
• Use of discretion controlling and manipulating
  the interview and its outcome
• In building relationships sometimes you get
  a better response from women candidates,
  particularly when you ask, members of the
  judiciary have sometimes been criticised for
  being too distant, do you agree with that? ..
  Usually then women come out much better .. I try
  to get them off that and move them on somewhere
  else because thats advantaging them.
• Well, again, if you ask them what they are doing
  in their community because, I think of an Asian
  candidate, telling me he was a member of Rotary
  wasnt actually what I was looking for.

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The dynamics of micro political control in
assessment centres

• Assessor practices and perspecitves
• Use of stereotypes influencing competency
  ratings
• Again, a complete mixture of response many
  women are very, very good quite surprising
  really. Some of them really empathise with
  minorities. But you would expect that, from
  their experiences and so on, you would expect
  them to be good.
• Most of them BME candidates werent the sort
  of black people that I would meet in my court.
  They were highly educated. Some public school,
  grammar school, graduates so that they werent
  ordinary and theyd never had to struggle with
  diversity because of their colour

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The dynamics of micro political control in
assessment centres

• Candidate perspectives
• Main views on interviews
• (Im)propriety of questions
• Unevenness of diversity questions
• Assessor behaviour manipulating process and
  outcomes
• I dont think any of the questions were
  inappropriate. I think the tone was occasionally
  inappropriate and I dont know if it was
  deliberately trying to be confrontational, but I
  think it was slightly putting down, you know, so
  it wasnt the questions that were inappropriate,
  it was the tone. (BME candidate)
• I find it strange that they would even have to
  ask the BME person about diversity issues, you
  know l live it, I live the life. So I dont
  criticise the questions, it was part of the
  process, but I think its unnecessary, its like
  asking someone who is in a wheelchair how they
  can relate to other people in wheelchairs, why on
  earth would you need to do that? (BME candidate)

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The dynamics of micro political control in
assessment centres

• Candidate perspectives
• Final verdict on assessment centres
• Procedural justice is served?
• I think the assessment centre approach is better
  because somebody with a less middle class
  type background doesnt do so well in my view in
  these interviews. But it doesnt matter who you
  are, if youre going to be good at doing your
  job, you get the opportunity to demonstrate it in
  other parts of the assessment day. (Female
  candidate)
• Only to some extent because subtle processes of
  bias and discrimination infuse the assessment
  centre
• I think the people who do best at the assessment
  centre are probably the criminal practitioners
  Now, most of them are white and male, so in that
  sense it would prefer them because they are more
  able to deal with particularly some of the
  academic issues and the role playing, which I
  found terrifying. (Female candidate)

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Do ACs lead to greater numerical diversity?

• Based on analysis of one DDJ competition
• Women (both white and BME) more likely to be
  successful at the sift stage and also more likely
  to be recommended for appointment
• Ethnicity did not have any influence at the sift
  nor at the AC stages
• BME women had greater success rates at sift than
  BME men

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Conclusions

• ACs increase recruiter and to some extent
  candidate perceptions of procedural justice
• Plenty to indicate that ACs are an improvement
  over secret soundings
• But, a single HR intervention cannot tackle wider
  relations of power that enter the micro processes
  of the AC or structural inequalities that
  influence the pool of competent candidates
• Even this purportedly more objective selection
  method allows ample opportunity for manipulation
  by designers and recruiters
• ACs are social processes not places and
  competencies are socially constructed, not
  neutral and objective
• Thus, political control at the micro level of ACs
  rests with recruiters and existing power holders
  from the design through to execution

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Postscript

• In 2007 the responsibilities of the DCA were
  passed to the Ministry of Justice and to the
  Judicial Appointments Commission
• ACs are still in use
• Candidate seminars are held to explain the
  application and AC process
• Sample tests are provided on the website
• Potential candidates can volunteer to take part
  in mock ACs as part of assessor training
• JAC data shows an increase in the appointment of
  women in most categories of judicial appointment
  post introduction of ACs and some increase in
  appointment of BME candidates
• DDJ 2001/02 35 women and 5 BME 2007/08 58
  women and 8 BME