This extract from an article by Tom Calver was published in The Times.
Every six months, committees of civil servants and independent experts pore through thousands of applications to decide who will receive an honour from the Queen.
Under the leadership of Sir Tom Scholar, the permanent secretary to the Treasury, a list is compiled of who has “made achievements in public life” and “committed themselves to serving and helping Britain”. Anyone can be nominated for an award in the Queen’s birthday and new year lists. Yet the reasons why an application succeeds are kept secret.
Of the 1,239 chosen last Christmas, 803 were recognised for work in the community. But some high-profile appointments, critics argue, call into question the integrity of the process. Others warn that the system gives an advantage to those willing to pay.
Mark Llewellyn-Slade, a public relations expert, runs Awards Intelligence, a company that advises people on how to be nominated for honours. Its website says: “The average success rate is estimated to be just 10 per cent (1 in 10). Our success rate is over 65 per cent (nearly 2 in 3).”
He said: “Other than accusations of ‘cash for honours’ by wealthy political donors on a few occasions, I don’t believe the honours system is being misused.”
In a year when sleaze, second jobs and cash-for-honours scandals have rocked the public’s faith in British institutions, what could a better honours system look like?
John Penrose, a Conservative MP who is Boris Johnson’s anti-corruption “champion”, wants the system replaced with a points-based “UK talent list”. He said the existing honours gave too much weight to those in government jobs.
“The system should match the number of public, private and charitable sector jobs in our economy, so people in government jobs aren’t over-represented while less visible ones get overlooked,” he said.
Transparency was vital, he added. “The points would have to be won because of concrete, visible achievements that everyone can see and measure, so the playing field can’t be tilted by politics or favouritism either. That might mean the best educators would be the heads whose schools improved the most. The top entrepreneurs would be people who built the biggest firms, or created the most jobs. The leading philanthropists would have given the biggest donations. Money for political parties shouldn’t count.”
One day the honours system may be decided through data, but there is not yet enough publicly available information to make those decisions. Instead The Sunday Times has this year turned to its own specialists, who have been writing about the unsung heroes of sport, science, healthcare, justice and the arts all year.
Not all will agree with our choices; nor is the list exclusive. But it is a record of who we think should be celebrated this year — and, crucially, why.
The recipients of our 2021 People’s Honours include role models who have inspired children, and campaigners from a range of backgrounds who have fought to make Britain fairer and safer. Many have made enormous personal sacrifices to save lives and livelihoods. While some are prominent, many have been quietly working away during the pandemic.
To see the list, visit THE TIMES website…