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‘Revolving door’ watchdog has met only once since Johnson’s election win
By:   []
Date: None

The British government has been accused of failing to take transparency seriously after an openDemocracy investigation found that the Whitehall watchdog responsible for vetting lucrative jobs taken up by former ministers has met just once since December 2019.

The Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (ACOBA) normally meets approximately four times a year but has met just once and has failed to publish any minutes in almost a year and a half.

Former ministers and senior civil servants have to notify the appointments watchdog if they plan to accept a job in the private sector with potential links to their former area of responsibility. Since 2010, ACOBA has not refused a single application.

ACOBA was last month embroiled in the David Cameron lobbying scandal, when it emerged that a former head of UK government procurement had failed to notify the watchdog before taking a senior post at Greensill Capital. Cameron had unsuccessfully lobbied ministers to give state funding to the now-collapsed finance group.

ACOBA was branded a “toothless regulator” by a parliamentary committee in 2017 after former chancellor George Osborne took a £650,000 a year job with fund manager BlackRock after he left office.

Former Conservative minister Eric Pickles took over as ACOBA’s chair last April.

ACOBA’s casework is conducted on a rolling basis but the committee has also met roughly every three months over the last decade. Just days before Britain entered lockdown last March, the watchdog announced it would be “operating as usual but working remotely” but has held only one meeting since then, online in July.

A spokeswoman for ACOBA said the committee had not met more often as no applicant had asked to meet the watchdog. She added that minutes would be published next month.

[1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-investigations/revolving-door-watchdog-has-met-only-once-since-johnsons-election-win/