The culture battle in the boardroom

Inevitably the culture war battlefield is expanding from politics into the boardroom. Boris Johnson and his ministers are taking an intense interest, openly but with implicit threat, in who gets appointed to the boards of various non-governmental institutions. When they can call the shots, they are increasingly determined to do so.

The tide of battle ebbs back-and-forth. George Osborne finding time to chair the British Museum is regarded as important ground gained. So is the appointment of Richard Sharpe at the BBC. The selection panel has been ordered to go round again, to re-consider Paul Dacre chairing Ofcom. On the debit side for the government, Matt Hancock’s intimacy with one of his department’s Non-Executive Directors, or NEDs, derailed his career. It is far from certain that Sir Robbie Gibb will survive as a fit and proper non-exec BBC Board member after overstepping the mark by attempting to block a senior appointment to the news department on partisan grounds.

The boardroom battle is a stupid one to fight and clearly demonstrates that those wielding their weapons with enthusiasm don’t understand what a board is for and how it works. Nor do they seem to believe in the institutions which they are seeking to curb. Their attempt to “weaponise” bodies ranging from government departments to cultural institutions will be defeated, often, I suspect, by some of the people they appoint, naively, to do their dirty work.

The first duty of any board member – executive or lay – is to serve, and mostly preserve, the institution they have joined; even if they are not naturally in sympathy with its aims, professional pride dictates that they will try to do a good job. Governments of both shades have repeatedly come unstuck with attempts to appoint patsies to the BBC because most patsies couldn’t do the job. Gavyn Davies and Greg Dyke were well known Labour supporters but quit in defence of the BBC’s Iraq reporting. I know of nothing to suggest that the Tory-leaning Richard Sharpe and Tim Davie wouldn’t do the same.

Being a lay member of an NGO board is not exactly the same as being a non-executive director of a business though they share similar responsibilities. For a start, it is almost always unpaid, pro bono, which makes it a net cost in time given up of maybe ten to twenty days a year.

Boards need a range of skills from their lay members. Accountants and bankers are essential to oversee finance, audit and remuneration. So are lawyers; any serious body runs into all sorts of contractual issues and is likely to find itself defending cases in the courts. People with headhunting and personnel experience are increasingly in demand as institutions drive to increase the diversity of representation at all levels.

A smattering of professionals relevant to the entity is useful – it probably helps to have someone on the Royal Opera House board who knows about music. Schools often include teachers from rival schools among their governors. But it is best not to have too many specialists to avoid the temptation of straying into hands-on interference with management’s work. The job of non-execs should be oversight and not administration.

Great emphasis is sometimes placed on fundraising. This is a mistake, done properly, fundraising is now a highly professional and fruitful activity best handled by specialists with only a small overlap with the mainboard. Many boards find a use for journalists in their membership and not for the cash they don’t bring in. We can add a dash of profile and presentation advice. Amongst the many who’ve had successful stints are Jon Snow at the Tate; Libby Purves at the National Maritime Museum; Alexandra Shulman at the National Portrait Gallery; and Rosie Millard, chairing Hull’s year as City of Culture.

I’ve never been involved with a public appointment over which the government has some say, possibly because I only noticed the email asking if I’d be interested more than a year after it was sent to me. I did spend the then maximum nine years, however, as a council member of King’s College London (KCL), and, subsequently, a similar time as a governor of Sevenoaks School. I had no previous connection with either of them. The rewards for me have been the sheer quality of the colleagues I have encountered at both executive and lay levels and the satisfaction of doing what little I can to help valuable institutions evolve to stay that way.

There have been politicians and political activists on both boards but never once has anyone discussed what we were doing in party political terms. “Government” is viewed generically as an external force that the institution must cope with firmly but respectfully. What Sir Robbie fails to grasp is that his scheming is more likely to run up against institutional loyalty than the “leftwing group think” he fears.

The board structure is proving to be the best way to manage institutions – both commercial and not-for-profit. Bodies that have a more arcane and historic system of government frequently come a cropper thanks to vested interests as both the Church of England and Oxford University repeatedly discover their cost. Dons should never be allowed to run their colleges without challenge or oversight – as demonstrated by Christ Church’s costly and unjustified persecution of Dean Percy, which I have written about here previously.

At KCL, my most significant contribution was assisting the late Judge John Toulmin, who rewrote the statutes of governance to cut down the College Council from more than 40 members, many of them ex-officio including royal, church, staff and student body nominees, to a standard board half the size, with a narrow majority of non-execs, as recommended by the university regulator HEFCE.

Boris Johnson’s culture warriors seem to favour the retrograde move back to jobs for their boys. This has been most apparent in the undermining of Francis Maude’s plan to introduce NEDs to government departments. Neither branch of the executive, in this case, the civil service and the ministers, were willing to relinquish their power. Nor could the politicians accept an open and transparent appointments process. As a result, there is no explicit agreement on who the NEDs should be or their function. Perhaps the board model doesn’t work for the government, and the politicians should shoulder responsibility themselves.

Previous Tory governments do offer up one copybook example of how public appointments should be made, with no greater political benefit than the health of the institution they serve. Nicolas Coleridge was appointed Chairman of the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2015 under David Cameron. An old Etonian, Nick is a toff who is also chairing next year’s Jubilee Pageant for the Queen. He was also a brilliant gadfly journalist before becoming managing director of Conde Nast UK.

During Theresa May’s premiership, Coleridge oversaw the appointment of a new V&A director. To general surprise, the job went to a sitting Labour MP, Tristram Hunt. Fiona Hill, Teresa May’s then joint Chief of Staff, is credited with seeing off pressure from within the Conservative Party to ensure that the best person for the job was secured. The museum has continued to flourish in difficult times.

Tristram Hunt is a cultural historian who has written extensively about the great interaction between the private-public sectors which led to the achievements of the Victorian Age.

Cultural collaboration rather than culture war.