Advisory Committee on Business Appointments

The Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (ACOBA) is a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom, which was set up in 1975 to provide advice on applications from the most senior Crown servants who wish to take up outside appointments after they leave Crown service. Since 1995 it has also provided advice to former Ministers on their employment in the two years after leaving office. The committee, which is sponsored by the Cabinet Office, is chaired by Lord Pickles.

Membership
ACOBA currently has nine members. They are appointed by the Prime Minister. Three members are nominated by the main political parties. The remaining members are independent. Members serve a single non-renewable five year term.

Role
ACOBA is responsible for the administration of the government's Business Administration Rules, which aim to prevent former civil servants and ministers profiting from their knowledge of or contacts within Whitehall, and to prevent them from being brought into perceived disrepute.

The Ministerial Code prohibits ministers from lobbying the government for two years after leaving office. Former ministers who wish to take up employment or an appointment within two years must seek ACOBA advice, completing and submitting an official application form.

As the Committee's own Secretariat stated in a 2018 Freedom of Information (FOI) request, "ACOBA ... has no enforcement power and therefore depends upon voluntary cooperation from applicants..."

Criticism
The committee has been the source of several enquiries into its effectiveness. In 2022, the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Select Committee (PACAC) recommended that ACOBA be put on a statutory basis with legal powers to enforce its recommendations, after branding the committee in its current form as "toothless" in April 2017.

In April 2024, Lord Pickles - chair of the committee - wrote to the Cabinet Office setting out the belief of ACOBA that current business rules were outdated and relied overly on a “good chaps” model of government. Pickles called for a new “modern framework” to update the business appointment rules, including measures such as removing low-profile cases from the remit of the committee to focus resources and stronger sanctions for non-compliance.