ACFC/31DOC(2008)001 Consultative bodies should have a clear legal status and the obligation to consult them should be entrenched in law. Furthermore, the involvement in decision-making processes should be of a regular and permanent nature. Due attention should be paid to ensuring that consultative bodies are inclusive and representative. Appointment procedures should be transparent and designed in close consultation with national minority representatives. They should be periodically reviewed to ensure that the bodies concerned represent a wide range of views amongst persons belonging to national minorities. Consultative bodies should also regularly address issues of concern to numerically smaller minorities and persons belonging to national minorities living outside areas with traditional or substantial minority populations. Public administration, judiciary, law-enforcement agencies and executive bodies should, to the extent possible, reflect the diversity of society. The recruitment of persons belonging to national minorities in the public sector should therefore be promoted. Measures aimed at reaching a rigid, mathematical equality in the representation of various groups should, however, be avoided. State language proficiency requirements placed on public administration personnel should not go beyond what is necessary for the post or service at issue. Increased attention should be given to Roma and Travellers and numerically smaller national minorities, who are often strongly under-represented in public administration. States are encouraged to establish governmental structures dealing with national minorities. The role of these structures should be to initiate and coordinate governmental policy in the field of minority protection. Coordination between these structures on the one hand, and minority consultative mechanisms and other governmental structures on the other, is essential. Such arrangements can help ensure that minority concerns are prioritised in governmental policies. The constitutional design of a State can have a decisive impact on the effective participation of persons belonging to national minorities in public life. Bearing in mind the need to take account of national circumstances, sub-national forms of government and minority autonomous self-governments can be valuable tools to foster effective participation of persons belonging to national minorities in many areas of life. Irrespective of the constitutional design of a State, the central authorities should remain committed to their responsibility towards persons belonging to national minorities resulting from the international and national legislative framework. Adequate human and financial resources should be made available to enable bodies involved in minority issues to effectively carry out their work. It is essential that the public is adequately informed, both by mainstream and minority media, about political issues relevant to persons belonging to national minorities. Hence it is important to ensure adequate participation of persons belonging to national minorities in various media-related bodies, such as supervisory boards and independent regulatory bodies, public service broadcast committees and auditors’ councils. 8