Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Should We Look At Confirmation Hearings?

The whole Ray Lewis farrago seems to lend weight to the view that we should institute US Senate-style confirmation hearings for senior public appointments. Of course many in the media - and also the Conservative Party - are now looking for a scapegoat to blame for Lewis's appointment, and the spotlight seems to be falling on Nicholas Boles. This is unfair.

What ought to be happening is for people to examine the system , and come up with suggestions as to how it can be improved, rather than seek to blame a single person. In the end Boris knows the buck stops at his desk, not one of his advisors. It is now up to him to come up with a modus operandi to ensure that this experience is never repeated. Proper Confirmation Hearings in front of the GLA would seem to be a step in the right direction. At least it would give some meaning to the GLA's existence.

28 comments:

Anonymous said...

The GLA already has the power to hold confirmation hearings for certain posts:
1. chairman or deputy chairman of Transport for London;
2. chairman or deputy chairman of the London Development Agency;
3. chairman or vice chairman of the Metropolitan Police Authority;
4. chairman of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority;
5. chair of the Cultural Strategy Group;
6. chairman, or deputy chairman, of the London Pensions Fund Authority.

s.60A Greater London Authority Act 1999, as inserted by s.4 Greater London Authority Act 2007

Anonymous said...

An alternative is to maybe the Party should rethink the current policy of appointing fashionable faces to top level posts without a confirmed track record?

Rush-is-Right said...

It cannot be said that confirmation hearings in the USA have been a great success.

The hearings that were necessary before Judge Clarence Thomas could be confirmed in office were just an opportunity for scum like Teddy Kennedy to go grandstanding. And before that, the word 'Borked' was added to the language, meaning the dissemination of innuendo, accusation and untruth as a means of character assassination.

If Mr Lewis had had to be confirmed in office at some manner of public hearing then the same thing would have happened. That cannot be a good thing.

Anonymous said...

Why, exactly, is it unfair to blame Nicholas Boles for failing to do the very thing for which we're all paying him such an impressive salary?

Ray Lewis could perfectly well have contributed his expertise in an advisory capacity. There was no need, except perhaps in some notional PR terms, to elevate him to the status of Deputy Mayor. One the elevation had occurred, though, it could hardly surprise anyone that Lewis' record would be examined closely, critically and unsympathetically.

And once that examination was well under way, a competent Chief of Staff might have advised the Mayor to check the facts before staging that cringe-making press conference, which not only gave the Lewis story yet more 'legs' but bound Boris's fortunes yet more tightly to those of his erstwhile deputy.

Really, Boles' friends ought to let him know, as kindly as possible, that, once again, he is appallingly out of his depth. And if this is some sort of harbinger of how Cameroonism will work in practice, well then, heaven help us all.

Anonymous said...

This is a good proposal, in fact it begs the question about whether there should be a Confirmation Hearing for someone being in office yet without mandate, ie our sub-standard prime minister.

Anonymous said...

I know that Nick Boles is a friend of yours but even under a Confirmation Hearing it would be Boles job to ensure that the proposed person was clear of problems and not have it fall apart at the confirmation hearing.

Vetting should happen before the confirmation. Not during it.

The person who was least to blame is poor old Boris who had trusted Boles to do his job properly.

Anonymous said...

If Boles had written to Lewis past employer (CofE) for a reference, he could at least have done the basic check that most prospective employers do. I do not see any sign of Nick Boles claiming that was done.

Anonymous said...

They already have confirmation hearings at the GLA Iain. Ray was due to appear this month.

Maybe you should do a bit more research before you post this stuff.

Colin said...

"Should we look at confirmation hearings?"

No...

Anonymous said...

For a moment there I thought you were suggesting that Parliament should be given something meaningful to do. But that, of course, would suit neither Gordo or Dave. Best to leave it to Boris to ignore then.

Anonymous said...

Ray Lewis's position was to have been confirmed by the London Assembly at a meeting on Wednesday.

Confirmation hearing already happen.

The big problem here is that there was no vetting procedure for the role picked for Boris Johnson.

Was his job advertised as it legally should have been?

For such an important position, was his CV properly read and checked?

Or was it designed to be a headline grabbing appointment?

Ray Lewis may well be very good at turning kids away from street crime and it is a shame he has failed to have the opportunity to use his talents across London.

But a perfunctory review of his background would have thrown up some issues.

And his press conference in which he said it was the first time he had heard of the allegations was an huge error - rumours had been flying around Westminster for several days.

All it all, it was a complete cock-up, but it seems more of the blame lies with David Cameron and Nick Boles, rather than Boris.

Lewis doesn't appear to have been Boris's appointment and yet it has left him looking stupid.

Anonymous said...

No the buck does not stop with Boris.

Ray Lewis was Cameron's man. The buck stops with Dave.

David Boothroyd said...

The Assembly now has confirmation hearings for some posts, but not for Mayoral staff appointed under section 67 because they are the Mayor's choice. However the Mayor's appointments are divided into two who are entirely at his discretion and ten who have to go through a test of merit though not of politics.

The fact is that the Mayor has to take responsibility for assessing who to trust and that includes assessing their probity. The buck is always going to stop with the Mayor even if there are confirmation hearings; it's still the Mayor who proposes the candidates and it would be no use the Mayor saying to the Assembly "Well you didn't spot he was a wrong'un either".

GLA = Greater London Authority, consisting of the Mayor and the London Assembly. GLA != Greater London Assembly.

Anonymous said...

If there were confirmation hearings at the GLA it is unlikely that Nick Boles would have been confirmed as Boris's Chief of Staff.

strapworld said...

Iain,

It is interesting to read that the Church of England have apologised. They did NOT warn Boris. There was an insignificant line in a letter the Bishop of Chelsmford sent to Boris. NO face to face meeting as reported.

How the Church of England can be so wrong is quite a disgrace. But there again they do have so much on their minds..women bishops!!

Newmania said...

Ken Livingstone said on Radio 4 that he would have hired him .Lee Jasper was an admirer and the supposed warning from the Church was a conversation at a cricket match that may or may not actually have taken place. Bearing in mind the loathing of the leftist Church for its fundamentalist Black usurper I wonder about that ...
Its the first time in my life I have admired Len Livingstone who for all his faults did not lack cojones and will be squirming at this crucifixion by innuendo of a man who has quite literally saved scores of lives.
The London left mafia can gloat all it likes , something is not right about this ,and if the Conservative Party goes back to besetting sin of appointing bores creeps and yes men it will be a great shame..Boris is to be applauded for attracting this man whose sins , if they exist , have been more than compensated for by his tremendous example since . I did not like the Dale post criticising the new Mayor with such great relish over this one bit and I do not like the petty sneers when our children are being gunned down and we have more to worry about

Are We Conservatives?

Isn't it the Conservative insight that people are complex and that any system that tries to turn them into atoms will fail. This is exactly what are “ whiter than white “ politics is becoming .All this stupid obsessing about bathroom sets from John Lewes ,its infantile !
We have reached a point where the streets are so lost that we accept the need for witnesses to be routinely anonymous and all anyone has to say is “Were the proper checks instituted Boris ? “

Is that really the point Mr. Dale ?

Anonymous said...

Strapworld, why the hell should the church have to warn Boris?

Ray Lewis was appointed at speed and without the proper checks.

Did Nick Boles tell the church Boris was to appoint Ray Lewis?

No.

Is it the church's responsibility to warn every potential employer about former rogue employees.

Of course not.

The fault here lies with Boris, Dave, Nick and the Tory Party.

If they had checked his CV properly then this could have been ironed out before hand.

Trying to shift the blame on to the Church does the Conservative Party no credit at all.

Anonymous said...

Iain, if the same had happened under a Labour mayor, surely you'd be the first to be saying "it's not a problem with the system, it's just another example of the corrupt Labour mayoralty" etc.

Anonymous said...

Newmania said ... "Its the first time in my life I have admired Len Livingstone"

Is Len short for Lenin?

Anonymous said...

Questions should be asked not of Nick Boles but of IDS and the Centre for Social Justice, for it is they who introduced Lewis to the Conservatives!

http://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/default.asp?pageRef=119

Unknown said...

If it means we can blame Boles, it seems every cloud has a silver lining.

Anonymous said...

Iain,

You were DD's chief of staff, so you'll know full well that a principle must be able to completely trust his CoS. If you can't, you are effectively paralysed.

(Can you imagine Bartlett questioning Leo McGarry on his methodology?!)

Boles massively dropped the ball on this one. He should have done some proper work on the backgrounds of the senior people he was going to advise appointing. That he did is just hubris and demonstrates a total lack of post election planning.

Anonymous said...

Boris Johnson couldn't be bothered to conduct background checks, or ask or make sure they had been conducted. What a surprise. Oh, wait a minute, isn't it a bit like how he can't be bothered to prepare for media interviews, or appearances before the Assembly, or, er, anything?

If only London got the attention that Wimbledon and his 5k Telegraph column do. But not to worry, it's not like there is an epidemic of knife crime in the capital, is it?

Helen said...

What nobody has managed to explain in any satisfactory way is what Ray Lewis was going to DO as Deputy Mayor.

Boris Johnson was not appointed but elected. Tough on those who do not like it but that's the way it is. If you think he should have been "vetted" before he was "appointed" then you clearly agree with Yasmin Alibhai-Brown who thought his election as mayor was a coup.

The real question is why do we need the Greater London Authority at all.

Anonymous said...

Helen, we probably will never know the truth behind all of the allegations against Ray Lewis because the GLA inquiry into the affair has been dropped.

There will be no independent probe and this basically means the Conservatives have decided to abandon him to his fate.

As for Boris being vetted, we can all be sure he would never have made the shortlist if his dodgy background had come under the spotlight.

That's the beauty of being elected, his previous extra-marital affairs, Times sacking, offensive comments, were deemed by the electorate not to matter for some reason.

And Charlie, Boris gets an estimated £250,000 for his Telegraph column, not £5,000 as you suggest.

Newmania said...

But not to worry, it's not like there is an epidemic of knife crime in the capital, is it?


....Caused by Labour`s politicising of the Police insane welfare policy and moral cowardice.1`m just thankful I have not had to apologise to a murderer for my part in societies crimes against him.

Paul Walter said...

"In the end Boris knows the buck stops at his desk"

But surely some of the responsibility lies with "'Uncle Tom' Hating Leftists" does it not?

Anonymous said...

"The spotlight seems to be falling on Nicholas Boles"

It's OK, Iain - Boles has cunningly deflected it in the direction of Lynton Crosby:

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard-mayor/article-23515071-details/Mayor%27s+team+%27too+busy%27+on+election+to+vet+deputy/article.do