Examination of Witness (Questions 380-399)
WEDNESDAY 6 NOVEMBER 2002
SIR WILLIAM
STUBBS
380. Did your Chief Executive say if you do
this your position as Chairman is going to be untenable?
(Sir William Stubbs) I do not recall that being said
to me at all.
381. Did you not say to him, "I am going
to have to go on the media because I feel there is a crisis here,
there is an issue of appropriateness, but I expect to be in the
job tomorrow and to continue. Estelle will think that is a fair
point. She will think, 'I do not mind Sir William saying what
he said'," and you could continue in the job for as long
as you like. In all your experience did that not occur to you?
(Sir William Stubbs) Are you talking about me or what
I think Ken Boston said?
382. I am talking about what you thought the
consequences of your intervention would be.
(Sir William Stubbs) That is a different matter.
Chairman
383. He is really asking whether you thought
it was a High Noon situation?
(Sir William Stubbs) A hanging situation?
Chairman: No, High Noon.
Jonathan Shaw
384. Not hanging.
(Sir William Stubbs) The net outcome is the same.
I considered it was grave. As I said to you last time Chairman,
it is not my instinct or my way of behaviour to behave flippantly
or lightly or emotionally. My track record would show that I am
a pretty serious, measured administrator and I was, quite frankly,
shocked by what I discovered. I took care this morning to put
it in the context of the way a department of state had been behaving
over the previous weeks. I considered that needed to be in the
public domain, when an independent report was due to come out
within 24 hours. I did not know what other influences were used
by the Secretary of State and who else was being spoken to? But
the fact is if anyone who was involved in being under the scope
of that review was speaking to anyone else, it was wrong.
385. Did you think you would continue in your
job?
(Sir William Stubbs) I had no reason to think I would
not.
386. After all you said on television, you had
no reason to think that you would not continue in the job?
(Sir William Stubbs) If secretaries of state or ministers
believe that they can act improperly and then when they are told
they are acting improperly that the only way out is the High
Noon, or whatever it is, situation, I think public life has
come to a pretty sad pass.
387. Dr Boston had no criticism of the Secretary
of State.
(Sir William Stubbs) That is what he told you last
week and so be it. I am not talking about Dr Boston. Dr Boston
did not make the statement; I made it, I accept responsibility.
I pointed out to you that I was the Chairman of the regulator,
I was not the Chief Executive and furthermore I had been in the
job five years not five days. There is a difference between us.
If you think this morning I am in some way going to say something
that would open up a dispute between Ken Boston and myself or
in any way reduce his acceptability as a Chief Executive, then
there is no chance of that happening at all. I have confidence
in him, I listened to him, I listened to the Deputy Chief Executive
who was there, and I think you spoke to her as well last week,
and I took my decision.
Chairman
388. If you look at question 256 in the transcript,
Ken Boston's response to the Committee is not as clear.
(Sir William Stubbs) No, it is not, Chairman.
389. He says: "No, I was not in accord
with any protest against the Secretary of State. I was concerned
that the legitimate request of the Secretary of State had been
dealt with by approaching the awarding bodies to ask them whether
they could handle a re-grading, which was still being considered
by an independent inquiry in process. My concern was that the
QCA, as the regulator, had not been the body that was consulted.
I had no criticism at all of the Secretary of State." I think
all of us in this Committee are aware of what was said. It was
not quite what some of the discussion between you implied.
(Sir William Stubbs) I read that. You were asking
me was I aware of the consequences and so forth and I am saying,
as I repeat yet again, that if a person in public office believes
that a senior politician is behaving improperly and says so, if
the consequence of that is a burial party every time we are in
a sad state in public affairs. Indeed, when I met the Secretary
of State the first thing I asked for was a meeting in private
because I thought a bit of healing and reconciliation was called
for. I have said that in the public debate over the last four
weeks. I think reconciliation can be achieved.
Jonathan Shaw
390. You are a fairly robust and confident personality,
indeed one of the most robust and confident that comes before
our Committee. You give a great deal of certainty to the questions
put to you and yet I find it extraordinary that you say you did
not know whether you would be able to continue in your post or
not after your intervention through the media.
(Sir William Stubbs) I was perfectly firm; I said
I saw no reason why I should not continue. When I met the Secretary
of State I said that to her, "What we need to do is work
together to get reconciliation and get confidence restored in
the system and I would be pleased to work with you and your officials
to do it." I firmly believed that that was the way forward.
391. You thought you should stay on?
(Sir William Stubbs) I am sorry if I have given you
anything other than that impression. I was in no doubt I should
stay on.
Chairman
392. You were an independent regulator giving
advice as an independent regulator so why should anyone dismiss
you?
(Sir William Stubbs) That is right. In the context,
Chairman, which is important, it was not as if we were dealing
with something that was going to be resolved over the next few
months. We were under severe constraints of time in which we had
literally 24 hours before we started to see the emerging draft
of the Tomlinson report. I did not know what Tomlinson was doing
and there is no reason he should tell me. We would have gone to
the Secretary of the Cabinet but that route was blocked for obvious
reasons. Under those circumstances, as Chairman I saw only one
route open to me and that was to bring it out into the public
domain, and that is what I did, but I did not do it lightly.
Mr Turner
393. Sir William, you said you formed a view
that certain officials have briefed the press. On what basis do
you form that view or do you have evidence?
(Sir William Stubbs) I formed that view as far as
D J Collins was concerned on the basis of the way he had treated
a number of stories about the QCA in which I had been directly
involved, and therefore knew his style. When it came to the actual
week in question, I was being told by the QCA press officer that
journalists had phoned up and said this was what was happening.
They did not need to tell us, frankly, because it had appeared
in the press. That is against the background where I knew Collins
would give stories to reporters and then imply, "If you do
not report them in a way that is friendly you will be cut off
and get no stories." I have been told that by reporters.
This is what is called these days "managing" the news.
I think he is called manager or director of the news. I am sure
that people sitting on the fringe here will be aware of the way
in which some of their colleagues are treated, so I knew the way
in which they were behaving. Then having had it reported to me
direct what was happening, it appeared in the press not once or
twice I think but five times, so I do not think there was much
doubt there. One was a civil servant and one was a political adviser.
394.And to your knowledge, does that comply
with the codes of practice which apply to civil servants on provision
of public information?
(Sir William Stubbs) You mean the way in which they
behaved?
395. Yes.
(Sir William Stubbs) I would sincerely hope it is
not. If an independent inquiry is underway and they are saying
this is the outcome by the way and this is what is going to happen,
I would have said that is highly improper and wrong. Whether it
is in a code is another matter. The point I am making to you is
either these people were acting as free agents, in which case
they are loose cannons in the departments and this is a big department
of state, or they were acting under instructions. Either way that
was a flawed system and it should not happen.
396. Is the evidence on which you formed your
opinion limited to the process of this inquiry or does it go back
to a track record of behaviour by these and other officials in
a similar way?
(Sir William Stubbs) It goes back. I think I gave
an example in something I have written or said recently on the
QCA quinquennial report that Ms Munn referred to, which concluded
that the QCA was doing a good job and in certain things it should
do better. It was presented to the press as QCA needed to raise
its act and sort out the awarding bodies. That was not even the
subject of the quinquennial review. It was a good report and a
number of, I am not sure whether they are faces sitting on the
edge of the room, people that printed the story that QCA should
raise its act came afterwards and apologised and said they had
to do it because if they did not do it they would not get stories
in the future.
397. A last question and I know this can only
be with the view of an intelligent layman, have you experienced
or read of this happening elsewhere in government?
(Sir William Stubbs) I have no experience of the Government
other than in the particular part in which I have been involved.
I read the press like everyone else and allegedly, as they say,
there do seem to be examples of this, indeed one or two spectacular
examples of it in last two or three years. I would not know enough
about that. All I know was from the particular part I was dealing
with, over a number of months and years now, that is a pattern
of behaviour that was thought to be acceptable. My view of the
administration of a great public service like education is that
it should not be handled like that.
Chairman
398. Do you think a more independent role of
the QCA would help in ceasing it being used as a whipping boy
or girl?
(Sir William Stubbs) Yes, Chairman, no doubt about
that. Given the security that comes from being a creature of Parliament
direct rather than—indeed the Secretary of State wrongly
said on the Monday after I had left that this was the worst example
of breakdown by a departmental agency. We now know it was not
the worst example, but she used the word `agency' and I think
that is the giveaway. Departments see these bodies as agents,
and they are not. They are meant to be non-departmental public
bodies, but there is a tendency to assume that they are there
to do the bidding of the department . That was probably in your
mind at the beginning of year when you said, "Are you sure
you can tell the Secretary of State when you think she is straying
offside?" If it is a creature of Parliament, from what I
know of dealing with organisations like that, it would be a different
attitude, and it would be a different organisation and a more
self-confident organisation that it has been possible to be over
the last five years.
Chairman
399. You have been saying some pretty nasty
things about the department and civil servants—
(Sir William Stubbs) Two, Chairman.
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