Rishi Sunak should not appoint the next BBC chair, veteran broadcaster David Dimbleby has said, after Richard Sharp resigned from the post over a report that found he had broken the rules when he applied for it.
Mr Sharp, a former Tory party donor, stepped down on Friday after a review by Adam Heppinstall KC found he had failed to disclose his role in helping to arrange an £800,000 loan guarantee for the prime minister at the time, Boris Johnson.
The report said Mr Sharp had failed to declare two “potential perceived” conflicts of interest: first that he had introduced to the Cabinet secretary a cousin of Mr Johnson who later stood as guarantor for Mr Johnson’s line of credit, and second that he had told Mr Johnson of his intention to apply for the BBC position before submitting his application.
Mr Sharp insisted he had made the introduction “with the best of intentions” in respect of ensuring that the rules were followed, and apologised for the “oversight”.
While the BBC says it decides the appointment of its chair through “fair and open competition”, the final sign-off is given by the prime minister, who in this case was Mr Johnson.
Speaking on the BBC’s Today programme on Saturday, former Question Time host Mr Dimbleby said the appointment process should be changed to stop prime ministers having the final say on the appointment of the corporation’s chair.
“There are so many lessons,” he said. “The key background is Boris Johnson himself, who rode with delight over all of the accepted practices. If you look at the Owen Paterson affair, for instance, he takes a wrecking ball to convention.
“In this case, he wanted Richard Sharp, and No 10 leant on DCMS [the Department for Culture, Media and Sport] to make him their choice.”
Mr Dimbleby has twice applied to be BBC chair, but said he would not be running again this time.
He added: “The BBC is incredibly important. The boss of it needs to be chosen by somebody, and I think there is good reason, now, for it not to be chosen ever again by the prime minister. But I have little hope of it changing.”
The veteran broadcaster called for a public commission to manage appointments to important posts, suggesting a cross-party panel should decide on appointments to roles such as chair of the BBC, as well as who should run regulators such as Ofcom and Ofsted.
“It is the process that is wrong,” he said. “By all accounts Richard Sharp was a good chairman.”
Mr Dimbleby’s urge for change echoed comments by Gary Lineker, another grandee of the corporation, who on Friday tweeted: “The BBC chairman should not be selected by the government of the day. Not now, not ever.”
The government has not announced that Mr Lineker and Mr Dimbleby’s wish will be granted, but top Tory Damian Green, who heads the culture, media and sport committee, said he expects the process in respect of the appointment of Mr Sharp’s successor to be conducted “properly”.
“I would hope and expect that when we come to ... appointing the next chair of the BBC, that everyone does it properly,” he said.
“[I would hope] that everyone reveals any potential conflict of interest to the interview panel, and to us as a select committee.”
Mr Sharp has said his failure to declare properly the potential conflicts of interest in respect of his appointment application was “entirely inadvertent”, but he is said to have accepted the findings of the report.
He will stay on in his role until a successor is found, most likely in June.
