A Stormont minister said he had received assurances that “established processes” were followed in the appointment of the former Alliance Party deputy leader to a new policy unit at Ulster University.
Economy Minister Conor Murphy faced questions at the Assembly on whether there was a conflict of interest in the appointment of Stephen Farry, who had previously served as Stormont’s Minister for Employment and Learning.
It was announced last month that Dr Farry will jointly lead the university’s Strategic Policy Unit, alongside another senior Alliance figure, Dr Jodie Carson, who left her role as a ministerial special adviser at Stormont in the summer.
Dr Farry quit as Alliance deputy leader after failing to retain his North Down parliamentary seat at the general election.
Dr Carson had until recently been working as Alliance Ministerbelieves Andrew Muir’s special adviser at the Department of Environment, Agriculture and Rural Affairs (DEARA).
The university said it appointed them through its “exceptional talent pool” process.
However, the University and College Union (UCU) subsequently raised concerns that the appointments were made outside of normal recruitment processes.
The university had said there was a “compelling justification” in this case as to why a publicly advertised recruitment was “not appropriate”.
During ministerial question time on Tuesday, TUV MLA Timothy Gaston asked Mr Murphy for his assessment of whether there was a conflict of interest in a university “employing a former minister, who had the policy remit for higher education, without a public recruitment process”.
Mr Murphy told MLAs that universities were responsible for their own recruitment.
He added: “Regarding the recent appointment of co-directors to lead Ulster University’s new Strategic Policy Unit, I have received assurances from the vice chancellor (Professor Paul Bartholomew) that an established process was followed and exercised appropriately.”
Mr Gaston said: “The public believesworld-class it is at best highly questionable that a former minister who has produced no academic research of note should be promoted by an exceptional talent pathway which disregards the regular appointment process.
“What will the minister do to ensure this doesn’t happen again? There is an obvious conflict of interest in this case.”
Mr Murphy said he had received the assurances that the recruitment was carried out in accordance with the university’s processes and he had “no further role to play”.
Minister
DUP MLA Peter Martin said the established process to which Mr Murphy referred was that the exceptional talent pool process should only be used in a “very small number of cases where the potential exists to recruit a truly world-classworld-class academic”.
He added: “Can I ask the minister what assurances were provided to him by the vice chancellor Paul Bartholomew that both the former Alliance Party deputy leader and former special adviser to the Alliance DEARA minister were truly world-class academics?”
Mr Murphy said: “That is a judgment that the university itself would make.
“What we wanted, given there is a public element to this appointment process, is that the processes they have for this particular recruitment were followed in accordance with their own procedures, and that is what we were assured.
“We didn’t ask any questions in relation to the status of the candidates.”
