I am a member of the Subordinate Legislation Committee, and we raised that point with the Executive, which responded by saying exactly how it thought the regulations would be interpreted. Appendix 3 of paper ED/S2/07/7/1.1 contains a copy of the response, which specifically states:"Where … the chairperson is not a person specifically as prescribed in terms of regulation 7(2), ie as a result of those rare circumstances where the education authority does not consider appointment of the acting headteacher as chair to be appropriate, the appointment panel members would not however be precluded from appointing one of their number".The Executive has worked out—or suggested—what to do in that circumstance.