The hunt is on for a new ACT integrity commissioner

Speaker Joy Burch has hired Ford Kelly Executive Connection to search for both the acting and permanent integrity commissioner.

The company was required to give Ms Burch a shortlist of candidates, as well as complete reference checks, for the interim position by last Monday. However, a replacement has yet to be announced and Ms Burch could not provide an answer to The Canberra Times about when one would be announced.

Ms Burch could only say the acting search was "well under way" while the search for a permanent replacement would start in the New Year. Mr Cowdroy will officially depart in the New Year. The government will pay the firm $46,200 for the search.

According to the contract, the consultant will start recruitment for a permanent replacement on January 1. "The recruitment process and selection report should be finalised by the end of June 2021," the contract said.

As well as searching for contenders, the company will be required to advise on probity matters associated with the appointment process and help the speaker to appoint a panel to assess the candidates.

It will prepare, with the panel, a report recommending a preferred candidate for the position.

The path to appointing an integrity commissioner has been fraught with roadblocks and political stalemates.

Mr Cowdroy's appointment to the role in May 2019 came six weeks after The Canberra Times revealed the previous pick for the job, Terence Higgins, had been cast aside because of concerns about his previous political affiliations.

Mr Higgins was the inaugural ACT Labor branch president in the 1970s and represented Gough Whitlam when he faced criminal charges in relation to the Khemlani loans affair, although he quit the party in 1990 ahead of his appointment to the bench. Mr Cowdroy has not given any public indication of the reason for his departure.

"I think it is timely a successor is appointed so that the new commissioner can maintain the momentum of the operations of the commission," he said.

Mr Cowdroy was a justice of the Federal Court of Australia, served as an additional judge of the ACT's Supreme Court and was a Land and Environment Court judge.

He also served in the Navy Reserves as a captain, as well as on the Defence Force discipline appeal tribunal, and was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for his services to the Returned and Services League of Australia.