Examination of Witnesses (Questions 220
- 239)
WEDNESDAY 6 JUNE 2007
MR SHAUN
WOODWARD AND
MR ANDREW
RAMSAY
Q220 Lord King of Bridgwater:
You do not wish to answer the question as to whether they did
or did not?
Mr Ramsay: Can I just check that.
Mr Woodward: With respect, Lord King, it is
not a question of whether or not my senior civil servant wishes
to answer the question, it is whether or not it is appropriate,
because, in doing so and by making a commitment that he might
answer the question or might not answer the question, effectively
you may be able, or those members of the public here, or members
of the press who are here, to adduce information about the candidate
and the short list. We are very happy to correspond with the Committee.
Q221 Lord King of Bridgwater:
I am sorry; we are getting in a muddle. I thought that the panel
produced a short list. The question I thought My Lord Chairman
asked was that the Secretary of State had the power, I think Mr
Ramsay made that clear, if he wants to add somebody to the short
list?
Mr Woodward: That is correct.
Q222 Lord King of Bridgwater:
I see nothing wrong with the Secretary of State adding somebody
to the short list; they have got to take the responsibility for
doing it and be prepared to do it publicly. I was not quite clear
from your answer whether you said that she did or did not?
Mr Ramsay: No, that was the thing I did not
answer, and I would like to take advice.
Mr Woodward: Quite rightly so, too. I think
that we need to take advice.
Mr Ramsay: I must take advice, because that
was a detailed part of the process and I am not sure whether I
am entitled to say.
Q223 Chairman:
I am not quite sure what the problem is?
Mr Woodward: I can help you, My Lord Chairman.
I remember, at the time, one particular newspaper speculating
about the suitability of particular candidates and whether or
not they should or should not be on the short list, and I do not
wish to fuel information which at the time was, by and large,
inaccurate but very clearly had a political reason for being placed
there. We are very happy to correspond with this Committee and
provide you with all of the answers you want, but I do believe
it is possible for people to take out of this line of questioning
that somehow we are wishing to conceal something; we are not,
we are just wishing to maintain that we follow the principles
of public appointments to the letter and do not breach them.
Q224 Chairman:
What I do not quite understand is do you actually know the answer
to the question?
Mr Woodward: Yes, I do.
Mr Ramsay: Yes, absolutely.
Q225 Chairman:
You both know the answer, so it is not that you need to check
the files?
Mr Woodward: Not at all.
Mr Ramsay: No, not at all; absolutely I know
the answer.
Mr Woodward: I know the precise answer to your
question.
Q226 Chairman:
The only issue is whether you should actually tell this Committee
and tell the public?
Mr Woodward: No, My Lord Chairman; again, I
would suggest to you that question is in danger of caricaturing
the process. I just wish to ensure that I maintain the integrity
of the process of public appointments and if, in giving you an
answer now, I allow you to imply from that, or infer from that,
that actually candidates were or were not added, that I want to
make sure with the assessor that is appropriate for me to give
you, and I would ask you to respect my position. It is not about
covering my back, it is not about covering my civil servant's
back, it is about preserving the integrity of the process, which
I believe is important.
Q227 Lord King of Bridgwater:
Can I say, Mr Woodward, that actually you have given the impression,
I thought, I may be unkind, that the panel was totally responsible,
and I thought this was Mr Ramsay's evidence as well, and that
out of this panel process came the decision and the recommendation
for the appointment of the Chairman. The failure now to answer
this question, I may be completely misunderstanding the position,
gives me the understanding that the panel process was not the
whole matter, it was not in total charge, and that other influences
came to bear?
Mr Woodward: With respect, Lord King, it is
not a failure to answer the question, it is about ensuring whether
or not it is appropriate for me to answer the question, and to
confuse failure and appropriateness—
Q228 Chairman:
One way or another, you are not answering the question?
Mr Ramsay: Can I be absolutely clear and just
repeat what I said. The panel makes a recommendation, it goes
to the Minister, the Minister has the opportunity to decide whether,
in terms of the short list, that is correct and they can add,
possibly, suggest, an addition, if they have good reasons for
doing that. All I have not said is whether that happened in this
case. Can I go away, check whether I can tell you then tell you.
Q229 Chairman:
Thank you; but you see the relevance of it, because the relevance
of it might be, and I do not know if this is the case or not,
that the suggestion, the proposal, it may be more than one, of
a Secretary of State, say there was just one, happened to be the
person who actually finished up as Chairman of the BBC? I think
it is important that actually we understand that.
Mr Ramsay: I understand that; absolutely.
Chairman: I do not think we are going to get
much further on this particular point, so I will move on to the
role of the Chairman of the BBC, where I am sure you will both
be absolutely open. Lady Eccles, were you going to continue on
this?
Q230 Baroness Eccles of Moulton:
No; number three is coming in before number nine. I slipped down
the list. Good morning, Mr Woodward, we meet again under different
circumstances.
Mr Woodward: Indeed.
Q231 Baroness Eccles of Moulton:
The question is, how would you evaluate the way the BBC Trust
has worked over the past five months? For the first three months
it was without a Chairman and for the last two months, of course,
it has had a Chairman. I do not know how relevant that is to the
question but it is an evaluation of how the Trust, the new body,
has worked, in your opinion?
Mr Woodward: To be frank, I think it is too
early to reach a conclusion. I think one has to see this across
a timeframe much longer than just a few months. Having said that,
do I think the new arrangements withstood well the shock of the
departure of Michael Grade, yes, I do. Do I think that impacted
adversely in any way on the decisions the BBC has to make, as
a programme-maker and a broadcasting organisation, no, I do not.
Do I think the separation between the two Boards is working effectively;
yes, I do. Do I think the early indications, and they are indications
and not conclusions, simply because it is only in the first few
months, are that the new system is running well; yes, I do. Again,
because I do rely very heavily on looking at what people who know
a great deal about the industry say about it, I was quite impressed
by Michael Grade's analysis of how inadequate the former governance
arrangements were, where the Governors were making decisions on
evidence provided from the Executive about the Executive, and
I can see now a much clearer distinction between the way that
the Trust can operate and the Management Board can operate. As
somebody who was a programme-maker, I have to say, I think I would
have been much happier with those kinds of arrangements in the
1980s, making the programmes I did, because very often there was
huge confusion as to who did what, and my anecdotal evidence from
people who are broadcasters is that it is much clearer now. In
terms of the decisions the Trust are making and the work they
are engaged in currently, I believe, from the earlier indications,
that looks extremely good as well.
Q232 Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick:
We were having some discussion at the last meeting, with Michael
Grade, about the number of Chairmen there seem to be, both referred
to in the Charter and the Chairman of the Executive Board could
or could not be the Director General or the Chairman of the Trust,
and so on. I just wonder whether you can clarify a little bit
the differences between those two Chairs and answer the hard question,
which is, which of those Chairs ultimately is responsible for
the BBC?
Mr Woodward: I believe the Chairman of the Trust
ultimately is responsible for the BBC. The Executive Board, the
Management Board, is responsible for the day-to-day business of
the BBC.
Q233 Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick:
Which includes the editorial content?
Mr Woodward: Absolutely, which includes the
editorial content.
Q234 Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick:
The Chairman of the Trust then is not responsible for the programme
output?
Mr Woodward: I think that all those things are
a distinction and I would be surprised if your recollection was
different from this but the old system did not have pure distinctions.
There may be imperfections in the new system which brilliantly
and forensically this Committee has discovered, or is in the process
of making the discovery. I have to say that my understanding,
talking to people in the organisation, with perhaps the exception
of one or two disaffected individuals who have left the organisation
prematurely in the last few years, is that the experience is,
working on the ground, that it is working. The distinction which
has been made, and I know this Committee has deliberated over
some length about the question of the honorary title of Chairman,
is pretty clear. The Executive Management Board make the day-to-day
editorial decisions of the organisation and commissioning programmes;
the role of the Trust is different, it has a role relating to
the licence fee payer, which is clearer than the previous role.
Ultimately, yes, the buck will stop with the Chairman of the BBC.
Q235 Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick:
If the Executive Board make decisions about editorial matters,
which is in their right purview to do, but those decisions are
different from the opinions of the Trust or of the Chairman of
the Trust, the Chairman of the Trust needs to defend the decisions
of the Executive Board, as Chairman of the BBC?
Mr Woodward: The Chairman of the Board also
needs to defend the position of the licence fee payer; and, again,
that is an exemplary part of the new Charter agreement that has
been laid out, much clearer than the previous situation in which
the Chairman had to be cheerleader and critic.
Q236 Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick:
Could you unpack that just a little bit more so that your reflection
is really of the role of the rest of the Trust? Michael Grade
implied that he was one amongst many but he was slightly more
important than the one amongst many, but essentially he was just
equal to the rest; so do the rest of the Trust represent the BBC
or does the Chairman represent the BBC?
Mr Woodward: The rest of the Trust also represent
the licence fee payers in Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, they
represent other constituent parts of the United Kingdom and licence
fee payers. They need to be people who are across television issues,
but, again, in enabling the organisation to have a Trust body
which, as it were, is able effectively to look both ways, I think
we make a step forward. As I said to the Bishop of Manchester
earlier this morning, this is not a perfect world; we think we
may have achieved a better way of organising the BBC in the interests
of the licence fee payer but, the fact of the matter is, the proof
will be in the pudding.
Q237 Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall:
Minister, I think that some of the reasons why we are puzzling
about this issue appear from the discussions which we had with
Michael Grade the last time the Committee met, which I know that
you have seen, but they revolve really around what interests are
being represented, by whom and to whom. It is pretty clear, from
the way that the Trust has been set up, that its primary responsibility
is to represent the interests of the licence fee payer, as you
have said. It is not clear, at least to me, whether it is the
assumption of those who imagined this structure that, in some
way, the interests of the BBC and the interests of the licence
fee payer are co-terminus or whether there could be interests
which the BBC itself has which might need to be represented separately;
and, if that is the case, could you say whose responsibility it
is to represent those interests?
Mr Woodward: With respect to your question,
it is possible to hypothesise into a situation of total abstraction,
what would be a practical example? It would be helpful for me
to answer, I think.
Q238 Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall:
I will give you a practical example. In the recent, what should
one say, disagreement between the BBC and the Government over
what became the Hutton inquiry, there were interests being represented;
in the event, the Chairman and the Chief Executive, the Director
General, of the BBC both resigned as a result of that inquiry's
findings. I know politicians dislike hypothetical questions, and
you have just made that clear, but perhaps if you were to examine
the events which gave rise to the Hutton inquiry would you be
able to say what you think the outcome of that inquiry's findings
would have been if the structure had been as it is now?
Mr Woodward: Politicians, in my experience,
with respect, actually like hypothetical questions; they are delighted
to filibuster for hours because then they can pontificate about
their own examples. The value of actually going to a specific
example, and the one that you draw on is useful, it is precisely
because of the confusion of responsibilities, the confusion of
lines of responsibility, the fact that nobody could really distinguish
within the organisation between the views of the Director General
and the Chairman of the BBC at the time of Hutton that this whole
reason to reorganise the Trust and the Management Board came about.
I believe it is now much clearer as to who should have responsibility,
and in such a situation happening now I think we would be much
clearer about from whom to expect decisions to be made.
Q239 Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall:
Who makes decisions, fine; really I am interested in knowing who
you think would have resigned?
Mr Woodward: It depends who would have made
a mistake and whether or not the individual in that particular
position, with those particular responsibilities—
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