The Wrong Guy Resigns

As I've said many times before, politics is as much about luck as anything. The furore surrounding David Gauke and his shameless sacking of Nick Hardwick is just as the nation is suitably distracted by a bloody Brexit milestone, combined with gate-fever as we head for the Easter break with the House of Commons in recess.  This from the Guardian:-

How Parole Board chair became a sacrificial lamb

Justice secretary should have initiated reform of board instead of forcing Nick Hardwick out

Nick Hardwick’s letter to the justice secretary, David Gauke, after their meeting on Tuesday to prepare for the Worboys’ high court ruling makes clear that he was forced to resign in the biggest criminal justice sacking since Michael Howard’s involvement in the dismissal of prisons chief, Derek Lewis.

“You told me that you thought my position was untenable,” he told Gauke. “I am sorry for the mistakes that were made in the case but I have always made it clear that I will support the members and staff of the board in the very difficult individual decisions they make and I will accept accountability for the work of the board. I will not pass the buck to those who work under me. In these circumstances I inform you of my decision to resign with immediate effect.”

The high court ruling in the case was actually on quite a narrow legal issue. The three judges did not try to put themselves in the place of the experienced parole board members who made the decision to recommend release on the basis of the evidence that they had before them.

Instead, the judges said the experienced Parole Board panel was mistaken in not going beyond the attacks on 12 women for which Worboys, aged 60, had been convicted and served 10 years in prison and taking into account up to 100 other offences for which he had not been convicted.

The court ruled that the Board panel was mistaken in this “misapprehension” in a case which they described as “difficult, troubling” and with “many exceptional features”.

In his letter to the justice secretary, Hardwick, who had no role in the decision taken by the panel to recommend Worboys’ release, makes clear he shared that misapprehension which was supported by the legal advice he had received: “We were wrong,” he accepts bluntly. It is a ruling that could now overturn years of parole board practice and lead to even longer sentences in the future.

Hardwick has had a selfless career in public service. He was involved in setting up Centrepoint, the homeless charity. He led the Refugee Council, which was never a popular cause. He chaired the Independent Police Complaints Commission and then took on the tough job of chief inspector of prisons before his appointment to the parole board.

None of these jobs was straightforward and in each post he demonstrated a principled approach to the difficult issues involved. As soon as the Worboys decision became the centre of an intense public debate, Hardwick made clear he had been pressing to increase the transparency of parole board decisions, and the official inquiry made clear it was not a failing of the parole board that victims were not properly kept informed.

But he is also right in his letter to the justice secretary to raise his concern about the independence of the Parole Board: “I believe this matter raises very troubling questions about how the board’s independence can be safeguarded. I hope parliament will consider what structural changes are necessary to ensure this independence is protected in future.”

He was right to raise the issue. The new justice secretary only weeks before swore an oath to protect the independence of the judiciary. Yet Gauke was prepared, egged on by the chairman of the Conservative party, to consider launching a legal action himself to overturn the decision of the Parole Board.

It was right – as has been proved – that the victims’ legal action should go ahead, but for the justice secretary to take his own steps in response to a media-fuelled campaign to overturn the Parole Board in the courts was a step way over the line for a lord chancellor. In the event Gauke didn’t go ahead because the Ministry of Justice lawyers advised that such a high court action was unlikely to succeed. They too got it wrong.

If Gauke felt the Parole Board had made a mistake in not taking into account Worboys’ unconvicted offences, he should have initiated the necessary reforms rather than make a sacrificial lamb out of a Parole Board chair who was only too willing to reform the board.

The role of the Parole Board has grown significantly in the past 20 years, matching the increase in the public’s appetite for more punitive sentencing, which in turn has been reflected in the growth of indefinite sentences. The board’s secrecy – although an essential part of the justice system – has always stood apart from the judicial system. It is time it also enjoyed the independence of the courts and protection from populist politicians.

--oo00oo--

This from the Guardian's Public Leaders Network column:-

Parole Board affair exposes a tangled web of responsibilities

What’s the point of having arm’s length bodies if ministers are going to sack their leaders as soon as the going gets rough?

David Gauke is no Michael Howard. Somewhat less nocturnal, Ann Widdecombe might say. But the present justice secretary shares with the former Tory home secretary a problem that has bedevilled Whitehall for many years and is now getting worse. What happens when arm’s length bodies, such as the Parole Board, use the autonomy they have deliberately been given to behave, well, autonomously?

If those who chair boards are sacked when they do what it says in their job description, why bother with the length of an arm? The Parole Board case, which has seen the sacking of chair Nick Hardwick, has particular elements, of course, but surely a judicial review of a board’s decision-making should be welcomed as a demonstration of its autonomy, not become the reason for dismissal.

This takes place against a wider public management crisis about accountability. It has been boiling away in local government – look at the semi-autonomous organisation responsible for Grenfell Tower - and in schools, as multi-academy trusts pay their chief executives exorbitant sums and no one, least of all parents, know who’s checking.

Hardwick has stated his concern about the Parole Board’s independence. He’s addressing more than the specifics of the Worboys case. Does the Ministry of Justice really want civil servants to decide on the release of killers, which means in practice Gauke and his successors having to appear in the Commons and answer specific and detailed questions?

The very reason the former health secretary Andrew Lansley hatched the 2012 Health Act was to stop health secretaries being held responsible for what happens in clinics. He was repeating what umpteen predecessors (mostly Tory, as it happens) had said when they created “next steps agencies” in the late 1980s to manage operational delivery of policy through focused and lean public agencies, with their own staff, strategy and leadership structures.

The trouble was that agency managers then did things ministers didn’t like or started to edge into the political spotlight. It turned out agencies were a convenient way for ministers to blame managers – leading Howard, when home secretary, to sack Derek Lewis, head of the prison service, in 1995 after prisoners escaped.

The same question, about who should be ultimately responsible for what, keeps arising. Take the Charity Commission, another arm’s-length, would-be autonomous body. Tina Stowell has resigned the Tory whip in the House of Lords but are MPs and the public really going to be satisfied if the secretary of state Matthew Hancock refuses to answer questions about the commission’s work? He will try to say that it is independent, but will not convince.

Then there is the Office of Students. Its chair, Michael Barber, says he regrets the attempt to appoint a minister’s crony in the shape of Toby Young, but where does the episode leave the assertion that this is a body that is going to exercise judgment and diverge from its parent departments – education and business?

Councils are rushing to set up wholly-owned companies to do things that they are forbidden to do; NHS trusts are establishing arm’s-length bodies that can employ staff on different terms and conditions but are still, mysteriously, part of the NHS.

In 1959, a distinguished professor, Brian Chapman, in The Profession of Government said that “the haphazard creation of semi-public, public, quasi-private and partly autonomous bodies complicates law, operation and control”. The growth of outsourcing in recent decades has made things even more opaque. Carillion’s collapse has exposed, not for the first time, a web of non-accountabilities and irresponsibilities. The Parole Board affair makes it even more tangled.

David Walker 

(Contributing editor to the Public Leaders Network and former director of public reporting at the Audit Commission)

--oo00oo--

A selection of responses from twitter:-

Very troubling for chair of Parole Board - an independent, court-like body - forced to resign by a politician. As a man, I have found Prof Hardwick to be principled, clear-eyed about complex issues around parole, & robust about need to focus on those affected by parole
Harry Annison

Nick Hardwick is the epitome of integrity. It’s a disgrace that he has been forced into resignation.
Frances Crook

Disappointing that Justice Secretary has effectively relieved Nick Hardwick of his duties as Chair of Parole Board. Distinguished and highly capable public servant who could have led inevitable process of change better than anyone.
Rob Allen

Nick was doing great work and had already publicly said that he wanted more openness about decisions. He is not in any way personally responsible for a new concept - that past offences for which a prisoner was not convicted, should be taken into account by the parole board.
Penelope Gibbs

'I will accept accountability for the work of my team', and 'I will not pass the buck to those who work under me'. The sort of words you would expect of a decent leader. Wish all in public life were so willing to take responsibility. An example some in politics perhaps?
James Treadwell

Shameful that Nick Hardwick, a fine public servant, has been scapegoated & forced to resign over Worboys case. Contrast this with a politician such as Grayling who made so many mistakes running justice & remains in the cabinet.
Ian Birrell

David Gauke's sacking of Nick Hardwick is as bad as Michael Howard's dismissal of Derek Lewis. The justice secretary bowed to a populist wave and has questions of his own to answer about probation's failure to tell Worboys' victims of his possible release.
Alan Travis

So David Gauke refused to bring judicial review on Worboys parole saying it was inappropriate. Victims disagreed and won in court. Parole Board chairman resigns. Gauke survives?
Krishnan Guru-Murthy

Whatever may have gone wrong in the Worboys case, and things clearly did, I am sorry to see Professor Nick Hardwick resign. He has for decades been one of this country's most conscientious, thoughtful and selfless public servants.
Matthew Taylor

Its politically short-termist. The Parole Board loses a high quality leader at just the moment when it needs quality leadership.
Harvey Redgrave

To my mind, one of the most damaging consequences of the Court’s decision has been that Parole Board Chair Nick Hardwick was pressured to resign by the Justice Secretary. The former Chief Inspector of Prisons was (and is) widely respected in the criminal justice field for his qualities of leadership and his willingness to advance the causes of transparency and reform.

Russell Webster

Blunkett brings in IPP, Grayling screws the entire Probation system, removes experienced staff, prisons in most parlous state for years & latest evanescent Justice Sec. tells the one person showing leadership & positive change HIS position is untenable-unbelievable hypocrisy.
John Podmore

Nick Hardwick is a man of unquestionable integrity who has been willing to take on 3 of the most difficult public offices, Chair of IPCC, HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, & Chair Parole Board. He is a brave & honourable man.
Jane Furniss

Nick Hardwick did nothing wrong. He welcomed scrutiny. He did his job. He behaved, as far as I could see, better than many would if under the same sort of pressures. I am deeply disappointed by this outcome. It does not achieve anything useful.
Dr Shona Minson

The departure of Nick Hardwick as Parole Board Chair is not a resignation, it’s a sacking and it’s a scapegoating.
Peter Dawson