Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60
- 79)
WEDNESDAY 23 MAY 2007
MR MICHAEL
GRADE
Q60 Baroness Thornton:
It is kind of important.
Mr Grade: "Honorary" always implies
to me "unpaid".
Q61 Baroness Thornton:
That is also true. It does not necessarily imply that this person
is the person to whom the public and the licence-fee payers would
look as "the BBC".
Mr Grade: I think that is a debatable point.
I think the Chairman of the BBC will be the Chairman of the BBC
and will have that authority. Provided the Chairman of the BBC
can carry his fellow Trustees on an issue and will be able to
speak authoritatively on behalf of the BBC and on behalf of the
licence-fee payer, I do not see a problem.
Chairman: I think we might come back to this
with the BBC. We cannot get you to reply to everything on the
BBC inquiry. Let us go on to the process of your appointment.
Q62 Lord Inglewood:
You said in your earlier remarks that you were of the view that
it was appropriate that the split from the unitary organisation
to the dual organisation occurred.
Mr Grade: Forgive me: it was not a unitary board
before. The members of the Executive were not members of the Board.
Q63 Lord Inglewood:
Quite, but the change that occurred was a good idea. Then you
told us that you submitted a letter when you applied for the job,
which was the basis, I understand, of your interview. Was it a
core part of that proposition that this split that has occurred
should occur or something like it?
Mr Grade: I identified a number of specific
problems, as I saw it. One was that the then Constitution of the
BBC meant that the Governors were unable to make objective decisions
because of the fact they were relying on the Executive for the
information upon which to make the decisions. I advocated two
major reforms. One was to create the Governance Unit and the second
was to create services licences for all the BBC services, so that
the Governors would have some way of measuring performance, laying
down strategy, and so on. I did not come up with this particular
solution, because I was not asked to come up with a solution:
we were about to embark upon a two-year debate about the Constitution,
but I said that the Constitution of the BBC was in disrepair and
needed fixing and that was the crucial part. In the short-term,
we needed some short-term measures to stabilise things. The first
thing was the creation of the Governance Unit and working directly
instead of indirectly for the Governors and, also, the introduction
of service licences and so on.
Q64 Lord Inglewood:
When you presented this to those who were involved in the appointments
process, I think you said there were three independents on the
panel and the permanent secretary. Really the deal was done with
a very small group of people in a smoke-filled room, or is that
unfair?
Mr Grade: No. In that particular situation,
I was trying to identify and analyse what had gone wrong, why
it had gone wrong, what needed fixing. I certainly did not offer
any governance solutions. I explained what I thought was wrong
with the present structure, what we could do in the short term
to fix it. Undoubtedly, governance at the BBC was going to be
one of the major issues in the Charter Review debate. I felt they
needed to know from me that if I was expected to go in and be
Chairman of the BBC and defend the then present structure, I was
not going to do it because I thought it was a model that was broken.
Q65 Lord Inglewood:
The process through which you went was one which was pretty private,
was it not? Was it right, do you think, that someone who is going
to be appointed to a position of such significance should be assessed
against others in a pretty closed manner? Is there a case for
opening up the appointments process, say, to having some sort
of confirmation hearings? Or do you think it is just a complete
irrelevance from your perspective?
Mr Grade: You can argue it either way. The downside
of public hearings, confirmation hearings and so on, is that I
suspect you will deter a lot of very talented people from putting
their names forward. The object of the exercise is to get the
best person for the job. The process of appointment of BBC Trustees
and Governors and the Chairman, when I was there, had improved
dramatically from when I was Executive of the BBC in the eighties,
when it was all done with a nod and a wink and a telephone call.
There was no Nolan process. It was an appalling procedure. The
Nolan process has brought a degree of transparency. There are
people outside of government who know, in that appointments room,
who they recommended and if their recommendation is turned down
or turned over by Downing Street that could become public knowledge
very quickly. I think we have a good system presently. I think
there is a measure of transparency. There is a check and balance,
because of the bringing in of people outside of government to
make recommendation for the appointment, and, at the same time,
there is confidentiality in the process so that you can attract
the best possible field. A lot of people will not apply if it
is known that their application is going to be come public.
Q66 Lord Inglewood:
Is there anything you could suggest about improving it? Or do
you think that it is fit for purpose?
Mr Grade: The only thing I would do, which might
stop any unscrupulous government from exploiting the present system,
would be to make the decision of the independent panel binding,
so that if the independent panel says on the day, "Here is
the marking system, the person who came out top was X,"
X is appointed. The Government could do its work on the pre-screening.
When all the hundreds of applications come in and the final shortlist
is agreed, they can put their input in at that point.
Q67 Lord Inglewood:
Although it is arguable that the clever way to rig these things,
if you want to exercise influence, is to rig the shortlist not
the final appointment.
Mr Grade: Well, one step at a time!
Q68 Chairman:
I can see why, if there were six or seven applicants to become
Chairman of the BBC, it might deter them if all that became public.
But once the Chairman has been selected by this process and is
then asked to go for a confirming hearing, before parliamentarians
for example, that is not going to deter anyone, is it? It would
not deter you. You are not a shrinking violet.
Mr Grade: I think it would deter a lot of people,
yes, putting yourself at risk of becoming some sort of political
football.
Q69 Chairman:
It is not a political football, it is being asked questions. I
hope you do not feel like a political football at this moment.
Mr Grade: I do not know the answer to this question
but my instinct would tell me that the further away Parliament
is kept and politicians are kept from anything to do with the
running of the BBC is something that would meet with the approval
of the licence-fee payers. That is not to say that the BBC should
not be fully accountable to Parliament, but, in terms of the appointments
and so on, I think the licence-fee payers will feel that the further
away appointments are kept from Parliament, the better.
Q70 Chairman:
That is a standard BBC line, is it not, that Parliament is kept
unaccountable on the Charter, on the licence fee and on the chairmanship?
Mr Grade: I think there was a lot of evidence
during the Charter Review, in terms of the research done with
members of the public, that confirmed it.
Q71 Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury:
You said earlier that you were involved in choosing the Trustees.
Mr Grade: I was part of the process. I was one
of the interviewers.
Q72 Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury:
Who else was involved in that?
Mr Grade: There were so many interviews. I am
trying to remember. There was a leading civil servant from the
DCMS and two outside, non-BBC, non-government, non-departmental
interviewers.
Q73 Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury:
How were they chosen?
Mr Grade: We had a very rigorous marking system
between us. At the end of each interview we would mark the individuals
on a whole number of pre-determined categories.
Q74 Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury:
It seemed curious at the time, and it still seems curious to me,
considering you were trying to set up a body that was different
from the Governing Board, that three Governors slid from one organisation
to the other.
Mr Grade: We kept that to a minimum. We felt
we needed some measure of continuity. To have thrown the whole
board out and brought in a whole lot of new people who were starting
from a blank sheet of paper would have been too big a risk. We
needed to have some measure of continuity and I think the balance
was absolutely right in what we achieved at the end.
Q75 Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury:
You felt you needed that many.
Mr Grade: Definitely. Definitely, yes. That
few!
Q76 Baroness Howe of Idlicote:
I would like to follow up on this. I think you have said, as far
as the licence-fee payer is concerned, the last thing they would
want to have is more involvement of Parliament in the process.
Mr Grade: Political involvement.
Q77 Baroness Howe of Idlicote:
I wonder, not least given the specific duty of the Trust to look
after the interests of the licence-fee payer, whether they would
not have perhaps preferred to have an additional independent person,
perhaps the Public Appointments Commissioner, sitting in on this
process. Might that not have given them more confidence and, particularly,
if I may say so, on the Trustee appointments, when it must have
been a pretty close decision between you and the Secretary of
State.
Mr Grade: You have reminded me that on the appointments
panel for the Trust was a very fierce individual who ... I am
trying to remember their role. I cannot remember precisely but
there was somebody who was one of the "public appointment
police"—that is the best phrase I can use—who
took part in the interviews but absolutely made sure that the
process was rigorously fair and objective and so on and so on.
I cannot remember what the body is called, but there was somebody
from that body at the appointments board.
Q78 Baroness Howe of Idlicote:
It may well have been the Public Appointments Committee.
Mr Grade: Indeed.
Q79 Baroness Howe of Idlicote:
You thought that was a good idea.
Mr Grade: I thought it was an excellent idea.
Excellent idea.
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