Holed

The crisis management team working for Richard Sharp are unwisely doing their paymaster's bidding and digging in. 

Their response to a damning report by the Culture Select Committee (currently chaired by light blue Tory and former Beeboid Damian Green) is to stand by 'nothing wrong here', with a little added 'apology' and 'regret'.  

I trust all Chairman Sharp's fellow BBC Board members will read the full report. It highlights that it was Mr Sharp's decision alone that only Sam Blyth, Simon Case, Simon Case's deputy and Boris Johnson should know his part in 'connecting' the Prime Minister with a potential loan of £800k - at least until the Sunday Times found out about it. 

Here's some key bits from the full report "The public appointments process can only work effectively if all those involved are open and transparent. Richard Sharp chose to tell the then Prime Minister both of his application to Chair the BBC and of his involvement in the arrangement of a loan for the Mr Johnson but decided not to tell either the appointment panel or this Committee about his actions. The Prime Minister, the panel and this Committee are all integral to the appointment process for the Chair of the BBC, but only Mr Johnson was fully aware of Mr Sharp’s potential conflict at the time the appointment was made. The Government, and all those involved in the public appointments process must ensure that the future public appointments process is not clouded by partial disclosure."

"Richard Sharp’s decisions, firstly to become involved in the facilitation of a loan to the then Prime Minister while at the same time applying for a job that was in that same person’s gift, and then to fail to disclose this material relationship, were significant errors of judgement, which undermine confidence in the public appointments process and could deter qualified individuals from applying for such posts. Mr Sharp’s failure to disclose his actions to the panel and the Committee, although he believed this to be completely proper, constitute a breach of the standards expected of individuals applying for such public appointments. The booklet ‘Public Appointments, Probity & conflicts of interest: a guide for candidates’, which candidates are signposted to read, specifically cites ‘Perception of rewards for past contributions or favours’ as one of the issues that could lead to real or apparent conflicts of interest."

Here's a sentence from today's BBC News online report. "A spokesperson for Mr Sharp said he did not facilitate an introduction between Mr Johnson and Mr Blyth and he was not involved in the arrangement of a loan between them."

I put it to the BBC's Editorial Policy team, which ultimately reports to Mr Sharp  - in plain English, he did facilitate an introduction, and was involved.