Virginia Bottomley, an executive director of OPD, has forecast a wave of consolidation in the executive search industry. Addressing the Recruitment Society last week on the subject New Developments in Search, she said there would be "fewer, larger" firms as the search industry followed the trend set by the bigger law and accountancy firms.

Bottomley served in the last Conservative government, from 1992 to 1995 as health secretary, and then national heritage secretary until 1997. She was an MP from 1984 until last year, when she became Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone. She joined Odgers, now part of OPD, in 1999. Among the roles she has recruited for was chief executive of the London Organising Committee for the Olympics, when she headhunted Paul Deighton from Goldman Sachs.

Bottomley said bigger firms would be needed as they had more resources to deliver a wider choice of candidates.

However, Mike Stein of search firm Osprey Clarke challenged Bottomley's view. He suggested that there would always be a role for smaller boutique firms, because of "off-limits issues". He told Recruiter: "You can't have too many clients as a search firm. If you have Sainsbury's, Morrison and Tesco as clients, and Asda comes to you, you have to tell them you won't recruit from your existing clients. So they're unlikely to give you the assignment."

Steve Huxham, chairing the event, said the middle of the market might be "squeezed" while bigger and smaller search firms prospered.

Bottomley said the search industry was "coming of age" but warned of the dangers of increasing regulation. She also pointed to the increasing importance of the human resources function within companies. She said their value was being "increasingly appreciated" but there needed to be more of them on the boards of companies.