No 10 has rejected proposals to prevent ministers bringing in personal and political friends on to the boards of Whitehall departments in a move branded disappointing for governance standards by a senior Conservative MP.
Ministers ruled out a series of recommendations from the House of Commons public administration and constitutional affairs committee, led by the Tory MP William Wragg, which were aimed at making sure non-executive directors of civil service boards were truly independent and the best candidates.
Its report published earlier this year found that ministers may be bringing in political “super-spads” through the back door by putting them on the boards of Whitehall departments.
The committee had launched its inquiry into civil service boards a year after Matt Hancock was found to have appointed his unpaid adviser Gina Coladangelo to the board of the Department of Health and later started an affair with her. The committee said it was “difficult not to question her independence in this role”.
It also identified another seven examples where politically connected people have been put on Whitehall boards, including the former special adviser and Vote Leave activist Henry De Zoete; the former special adviser Simone Finn; the former Tory and Ukip MP Douglas Carswell; the former Labour MP and Vote Leave campaigner Gisela Stuart; and the former chief of staff in No 10 Nick Timothy.
In addition, it highlighted examples where Gerry Grimstone, a non-executive in the Department for International Trade, and Theodore Agnew, a non-executive director in the Treasury and Cabinet Office, became government ministers in the House of Lords.
The committee’s report, published in June, had called for the government to be more transparent about the recruitment processes for non-executives and the influence they wield in government.
However, the government said it would not update the corporate code governing the role and defended the appropriateness of appointing people with political or personal connections to ministers to the roles. It also ignored calls to reinstate the independence of non-executive directors, which ministers removed from the corporate code governing the role.
Wragg, who leads the cross-party committee, said it was “disappointing to see that the government has failed to take seriously our main recommendations to clarify the role of non-executive directors in government”.
“In its response, there is a prevailing sense of unwillingness on the part of the government to commit to reforming or replacing the outdated governance code,” he added. “The government has even refused to take greater responsibility for monitoring compliance with the existing code, leaving the public in the dark about recruitment processes, potential conflicts of interest, or questionable appointments of non-executive directors to government roles.
He said the government had agreed to implement a small number of the committee’s recommendations, such as collecting more data on diversity, but the “need for further reform remains”.
“This committee maintains that there ought to be greater transparency and accountability in the appointment and activities of those in a position to work closely with our policymakers,” he said.
The government said it “respectfully disagreed” with the need to update the code of governance.
“The government has taken steps over the last 18 months to improve consistency as part of our response to the declaration of government reform,” it said. “We will continue to embed this approach and make further improvements where needed. Any additional adjustments will be considered alongside any recommendations contained within Lord Maude’s governance and accountability review.”
Maude, a former Cabinet Office minister, is due to conclude a governance review shortly after some delays.
