By Jonathan Isaby
Last December we explained that all those who were on the approved Candidates' List after the General Election - both those who contested seats unsuccessfully and those who did not get to fight a seat - would have to go through a reassessment interview if they wanted to remain on the List for this Parliament.
The last few interviews are now taking place, but it will not be until after the referendum and other elections in May that decisions will be made and members of the List informed of their fate.
The process has seen them interviewed by various senior members of the voluntary party and the party's professional staff, and their assessments will be put to a panel of staff and volunteers who were not involved in the interviews. They, in turn, will make a recommendation to the Candidates' Committee of who should and should not remain on the List (without a right of appeal, as we reported in December).
So how many of the List are seeking to remain on it?
My information is that around 700 people are going through the process, meaning that only about 150 or so have opted to resign from the Candidates' List altogether.
I gather that those who did not contest a seat themselves who had not been applying for many seats and/or were not greatly in evidence during the campaign are having to work especially hard to justify why they should remain on the List.
And whilst there will still be no right of appeal, senior CCHQ sources have indicated to me that those not put straight back onto the List will be allowed to re-apply when the List re-opens later in the year.
Not that anyone will actually be able to apply for seats for a long time.
With probably the most sweeping boundary changes in history on the cards due to the reduction in seats from 650 to 600, the Boundary Commission is not expected to finalise its recommendations until 2013. This will leave a far narrower window for selections than usual in advance of the 2015 election, giving candidates of all parties a far shorter run-up to polling day.
And as to the rules for the way selections will be handled when they do come, it is too early for us to have any indication of how they will be run.
There are many big questions that have yet to be answered. What happens where a seat is similar to that already represented by a sitting MP? Will MPs ensure that they can get automatically selected or will it be a more open process, perhaps with a bye to the final round for a sitting MP? Will there be any place for primaries in the process? The party has privately indicated to existing MPs whose seats are effectively abolished that they will be "looked after" - but how?
And for those that do remain on the List, the party probably needs to do a bit more expectation management than usual. With the reduction in the number of seats coupled with a far larger number of retirements than usual at the last election, I suspect the new intake of Tory MPs in 2015 could be one of the smallest in recent history.