The proposed appointment of the writer and journalist William Shawcross as chair of the Charity Commission at least bodes well for a relatively short interregnum. John Wood, an existing board member, took over as interim chair of the regulator at the beginning of this month after the departure of Dame Suzi Leather. A starting date for Shawcross has not been given, and the proposal by the Cabinet Office to appoint him will be considered by the Public Administration Select Committee of MPs next week.
It will be interesting to see what they make of him. At their farewell hearing with Leather recently, she pointed out that the person specification in the advert for her successor called for someone with “an established reputation, experience or knowledge from one or more of the private, charity or not-for-profit sectors”. Her point was that experience in the public sector had been specifically excluded.
William Shawcross
Shawcross, aged 66, is certainly not a public sector man, but neither is he a private sector animal of the kind the government has said it wants to see more of in public appointments – people who have been out there in the commercial world, running things. He’s made his reputation in the highly commercial and competitive environment of literature and journalism, but that’s not quite the same thing. He’s probably best described as an individualist.
His credentials look good in a certain part of the voluntary sector in that he is chair of Response, which helps refugees and victims of political persecution, and has been a trustee of the International Crisis Group and the Disasters Emergency Committee. Given his Eton and Oxford education, the committee might be interested in his views on public benefit and fee-charging schools, the subject on which Leather was accused of being a zealot, and on which the commission is currently rewriting its guidance after the Upper Tribunal ruling. And given the way Leather’s six years at the commission were dogged by her membership of the Labour party, another question for Shawcross might be his political connections.
Shawcross’s CV suggests that his interests are more in geopolitics than domestic politics. His books have ranged from Czechoslovakia to Cambodia to the fall of the Shah of Iran. He has also produced biographies of Rupert Murdoch and the Queen Mother. His most controversial writing, however, has been about the invasion of Iraq, which he supported, and the so-called war on terror. That’s the aspect of his track record that’s most likely to attract criticism.
His appointment won’t be confirmed until after the committee hearing, but it’s unlikely that anything it says will change ministers’ minds. It would be instructive to know how wide the choice of candidates was, given the cut in the pay rate and the reduction of the number of days from three to two. But it’s clearly been decided that Shawcross fits the bill, and we will have to see what the sector makes of him.