British Parliamentary Committee: BBC chair made “significant errors of judgment” and “omissions”
The Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport Committee of the House of Commons published its conclusions after questioning Richard Sharp about a newspaper article that said he had been involved in arranging a guarantor for a loan for ex-Prime Minister Boris Johnson before his BBC appointment.
According to the Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport Committee of the House of Commons, one of the two chambers of the British parliament, BBC chairman Richard Sharp committed “omissions” and “significant errors of judgment.”
In response to recent allegations that Sharp failed to disclose a potential conflict of interest, the committee, led by acting committee chair Damian Green, published a report on his behavior and the procedure used to select Sharp for his BBC position. A few days after the committee had questioned the 66-year-old, just after midnight London time on Sunday, the report was made public.
After recent news reports claimed that Sharp had assisted in setting up a loan guarantee for Boris Johnson just weeks before the then-U.K. prime minister recommended Sharp for his current position at the British public broadcaster, Sharp made an appearance before it on Tuesday and defended himself. The BBC board then declared that it would look into the matter after receiving criticism from its chair.
Sharp reiterated an earlier statement on the subject on Tuesday by claiming that she had never offered financial advice to the former prime minister. He later said, “I have no knowledge of his financial affairs.” I didn’t help arrange a loan. “I believe I was appointed on merit,” he added.
The Sunday Times had reported last month that the former Goldman Sachs banker Sharp, 66, who has also been a donor to Johnson’s Conservative Party, was involved in arranging a guarantor for a loan of up to £800,000 ($990,000) for now ex-prime minister Johnson after he had reached the final stages of the BBC chair recruitment process. Sharp back then said that he “simply connected” Johnson and millionaire Sam Blythe, a distant cousin of Johnson’s. “There is not a conflict,” he argued, emphasizing that he “had no further involvement whatsoever.”
Back then, a Johnson representative claimed that Sharp did not give him financial advice. When asked about this, a BBC representative responded: “Any questions are a matter for the government. The BBC plays no role in the recruitment of the chair.”
However, the BBC chairman was criticized by the parliamentary committee. In its Sunday report, it said that Mr. Sharp had brought the issue to the attention of the Cabinet Secretary because he had “recognized the need to be open and transparent over facilitating an introduction of the then Prime Minister to Mr. Blyth regarding the £800,000 loan guarantee.” But he didn’t follow the same rules of transparency and candor when he chose not to share this information during the interview process (for the BBC chair post) or to this committee during the pre-appointment hearing.”
Additionally, it stated: “Openness and transparency among all parties involved are necessary for the public appointment process to function effectively. Only Mr. Johnson was fully aware of Mr. Sharp’s potential conflict of interest at the time the appointment was made, despite the fact that the Prime Minister, the panel, and this committee were all involved in the BBC chair appointment process. The government and everyone involved in the public appointment process must make sure that partial disclosure does not affect future public appointments.
The committee’s report also stated that “the reason the Cabinet Secretary believed Mr. Sharp had been providing financial advice to the then Prime Minister, which Mr. Sharp insists he had not done, remains a matter of contention. Office of the Cabinet Office should clear up the confusion … immediately.”
Concluded the parliamentary committee: “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 judgment, which undermine confidence in the public appointments process.”
Its report closed with a suggestion to the BBC chair: “Mr. Sharp should consider the impact his omissions will have on trust in him, the BBC, and the public appointments process.”